Japan mending ties with N. Korea

By F.J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, AUG. 25. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Yohei Kono said soft yen loans assistance to North Korea is one of the practical options that his Government had offered to an official delegation from Pyongyang to compensate for the 35-year colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula.

It is far too premature for either Tokyo or Pyongyang to make estimates about the amount of ``reparations'' but it now seems that any final settlement will take on the complexion of Japan's settlement with China, rather than the flat loans and grants payments made to South Korea 35 years ago, when Japan normalised relations. Japan had then agreed on $300 million in grants and $200 million in soft loans to the South.

The indication about this form of compensation came towards the end of the 10th round of normalisation talks held in two Japanese cities between high-level officials of Japan and North Korea. As expected there was no major breakthrough, but an extensive exchange of views on the demands by both sides that should now be narrowed in a back channel dialogue before the next round. In fact, there are two fairly reliable indicators that both countries are moving towards a process of normalisation, however long drawn out and however fragile owing to the fact that it is linked to factors other than demands being made of each other bilaterally. They include the talks between the two Koreas and also the North Korea-U.S. relationship.

First, before concluding this round, Japan and the North have already agreed to hold the next round in October, in an undecided third country. Next, perhaps equally important, is that they issued a reasonably candid joint statement. Employing the standard term ``frank discussions'' to admit differences, the joint statement specifically acknowledged, under an umbrella term the need for ``liquidation of the past.'' This phrase masks the Japanese demand that North Korea make a clear explanation about some 10 Japanese that Tokyo says were abducted by agents of the North in the 1970s and 1980s.

It also cloaks divergent positions on North Korea's demand for a Japanese apology for the colonial period and consequent compensation, further compensation for cultural assets taken away by the Japanese military as well as Pyongyang's call for Japan to grant legal status to North Koreans resident in Japan.

Eventually, much will hinge on the compensation package. North Korean officials had earlier called on Japan to make a ``bold offer,'' thus suggesting that a replay of a specific grants cum loans package as done in the South Korean case in 1965 may not be acceptable to North Korean pride.

Other than narrow their difference through discreet contacts before the October talks, the Governments of both countries, especially Japan has much work to do in the realm of public diplomacy to get its people to agree to a compensation package. The right wing elements are not in any particular hurry to normalise relations with the North. In fact, they even expect the North-South Korean talks to crumble at some stage.

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Section  : International
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