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Sunday April 23, 6:38 PM2ND LD: Issue of Yokota's husband brought up at inter-Korean talks(Kyodo) _ (EDS: UPDATING)South Korea and North Korea on Sunday exchanged opinions on Kim Young Nam, a South Korean man believed to be the husband of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese abductee to North Korea, at inter-Korean talks in Pyongyang, according to a pool of South Korean reporters. The two sides exchanged views on the issue without reserve in the 18th inter-Korean ministerial talks, the press pool quoted a South Korean official as saying. The Japanese government announced earlier that Kim, a South Korean allegedly abducted to the North in 1978, is most likely the husband of Yokota, abducted in 1977 at age 13. The Japanese announcement was based on DNA analysis conducted on Kim's relatives and Kim Hye Gyong, Yokota's North Korea-born daughter. North Korea has told Japan that Yokota married a North Korean named Kim Chol Jun in 1986 and gave birth to the daughter the following year. Pyongyang said Yokota committed suicide in 1994 while receiving treatment for depression, but the Japanese government has claimed that North Korea's explanation that Yokota committed suicide remains unconvincing. It was not known what the North Korean side said on the issue of Kim Young Nam in Sunday's talks. In the talks, South Korea also proposed that if North Korea agrees to repatriate South Koreans allegedly abducted to the North and prisoners of war from the 1950-1953 Korean War, South Korea will repatriate former North Korean spies, the official was quoted as saying by the press pool accompanying the South Korean delegation. Yonhap News Agency reported the South Korean delegation offered to return a group of some 30 former North Korean spies, some of whom have been in South Korean prisons since the end of the Korean War, in return for Pyongyang's release of South Korean POWs and abductees. South Korea repatriated a group of over 60 former North Korean spies in 2000 following the historic inter-Korean summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and then South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in Pyongyang, the North's capital. Seoul believes as many as 485 South Koreans have been kidnapped to the North, but North Korea has never admitted to abducting South Korean civilians, saying those people defected voluntarily, and has denied the existence of any South Korean POWs in the North. South Korea's chief delegate and Unification Minister Lee Jong Seok told a parliamentary committee earlier that he is considering offering the North "a bold economic aid package" to resolve the abduction issue. The latest inter-Korean talks that will run through Monday are being held between the five-member South Korean delegation, headed by Lee, and the five-member North Korean delegation led by Kwon Ho Ung, a senior Cabinet councilor. The South Korean delegation arrived in Pyongyang on Friday afternoon. The two sides are expected to issue a joint press statement at the end of the talks. The ministerial talks, the highest channel of dialogue, have been held several times a year since the inter-Korean summit. |
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