S. Korea, Japan to Discuss Joint Aid for Afghanistan
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone arrived in Seoul Tuesday for talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan today.
It was Nakasone's first trip to South Korea since taking office last September.
Yu and Nakasone will discuss a range of issues of mutual concern, including joint efforts to overcome the global financial crisis and conducting international peacekeeping operations, as well as the deadlock with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, ministry officials said.
An exchange program for South Korean and Japanese students will be a major topic, they said.
Earlier, the two nations pushed for a joint assistant project for Afghanistan. Seoul and Tokyo reached a tentative deal in director-level discussions last month to implement joint aid for vocational training and bean cultivation in the war-torn nation.
``On top of bilateral issues, the ministers are expected to discuss how to strengthen tripartite cooperation with the United States,'' a ministry spokesman said.
Sources said Yu and Nakasone would discuss Japan's pursuit of a meeting between a former North Korean agent and the family of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea decades ago.
Japan wants the Seoul government to help family members of Yaeko Taguchi, who was abducted by North Korea at the age of 22, interview Kim Hyeon-hee, a former death row inmate involved in the bombing of a Korean Air passenger plane in 1987.
Kim is known to have learned Japanese from Taguchi and said earlier that she was alive at least until 1987.
Japan said it has confirmed the abductions of 17 Japanese citizens by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s. The North admitted to only 13 abductions and allowed five abductees to return to Japan in 2002, claiming the others had died.
The Japanese minister is scheduled to return to Japan after paying a courtesy call on President Lee Myung-bak.