According to the Japanese press, the Japanese government held a meeting on Wednesday afternoon of expert managers under those cabinet ministers in charge of the normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea in the prime minister’s official residence. They reported that during the meeting, it was decided for negotiations on diplomatic normalization to resume since reunions of the families of four abductees, including Soga Hitomi and her husband Charles Jenkins, were realized.

Deputy foreign minister Sugiura Seiken, who headed the council of experts, said at the meeting, “In the appropriate future, we will discuss with North Korea in order to resume negotiations on North Korea-Japanese relations." The date will be set for August at the earliest according to Tokyo newspaper.

In the matter of reinvestigating 10 missing people who might be abducted, Minister Sugiura made it clear not to make this issue a condition for resuming the negotiations, saying, “It doesn’t matter if we think about the issue during the negotiations later, since North Korea has already promised a thorough reinvestigation.”

Diplomats in Tokyo are wondering whether the government's refusal to be stubborn about the additional investigation matter is perhaps in token of its gratitude for North Korea’s aid to advancing the date of the abductees' reunion with their families to 2 days before Diet elections in Japan.

The negotiations on diplomatic relations between the two countries were suspended since October of 2002, but Japanese PM Koizumi has mentioned perhaps normalizing the relationship within a year.

(Choe Heup, pot@chosun.com )