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TOKYO -- Quoting Democratic Parry lawmaker Masaharu Nakagawa, who is currently visiting Korea, the Japanese press reported Tuesday that former North Korean Workers Party secretary Hwang Jang-yop has accepted a request to visit Japan to testify before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee mid-next month.
According to Nakagawa, Hwang said that he would like to stay in Japan for around 10 days because the planned three-day visit is not long enough to present proper information on North Korea to the Japanese public. He also reportedly said, ¡°I want to tell everything about how the North Korean regime was established, what ideas its leaders have, and what the fundamental characteristics of the regime are. But I do not have any new information concerning the North¡¯s nuclear development and the abduction of Japanese citizens.¡±
As Hwang accepted its invitation, the Japanese committee plans to send a formal invitation to him sooner or later and ask Korea¡¯s Foreign Ministry for help. Some newspapers, however, said that attention is drawn to whether Korea would issue a passport to Hwang since his visit to Japan is a sensitive issue that can annoy the North.
(Jung Kwon-hyun, khjung@chosun.com )
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