Japan to Lift Some Sanctions on North Korea

Japan will revoke some of its unilateral sanctions on North Korea, the prime minister announced Thursday, after talks on the Cold War kidnapping of Japanese nationals.

Shinzo Abe said Tokyo judged Pyongyang, which pledged to re-investigate the disappearances of Japanese citizens, had shown sufficient willing in resolving the decades-old row and that this needed to be reciprocated.

"We have concluded that an unprecedented scheme that can make national decisions has been established. In accordance with the principle of action to action, we will lift part of the measures taken by Japan," Abe told reporters.

The move comes after the two sides met in Beijing to discuss what happened to the dozens -- or even hundreds -- of people Japan says were snatched by North Korean spies to train their agents in language and customs during the 1970s and 1980s.

The sanctions in question are additional to international strictures imposed after UN Security Council resolutions in the wake of nuclear and missile tests carried out by the North.

"Our stance of comprehensively resolving the issues of abduction, nuclear and missiles has not changed at all," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

"As a matter of course, we are going to coordinate with the United States and South Korea on the issues," Suga said.

Tokyo plans to lift a ban on North Koreans entering Japan, waive the reporting requirement for remitting more than 100,000 yen ($1,000) in cash and end the prohibition on some North Korean ships entering Japanese ports, government officials said.

Abe's cabinet will formally lift the sanctions on Friday when North Korea is scheduled to set up the investigation committee in Pyongyang, Suga said.

"North Korea appears to be showing its seriousness, and the Japanese response is reasonable," said Satoru Miyamoto, a North Korea expert at Seigakuin University in Saitama, north of Tokyo.

"But this is just the beginning as no one knows about what the results will be," Miyamoto told Agence France Presse.

"Prime Minister Abe has taken a gamble and will have to make tough, political decisions from now on," he said.

- Diplomatic chill -

Japan and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic ties and relations between the two have been testy for decades.

But a late warming -- despite several recent missile tests by the North -- comes as Pyongyang appears to have fallen out of favour with Beijing, its longterm patron and protector.

Abe's announcement coincided with a visit to South Korea by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which is largely seen as snub to the North, Beijing's traditional ally.

Kim Geun-Shik, professor of politics at South Korea's Kyungnam University, said the diplomatic chill rippling through northeast Asia, in which Tokyo remains at odds with both Beijing and Seoul, was a factor.

"Japan, like the North, is faced with increasing diplomatic isolation in the region with its relations with the South and China showing no signs of improvement under Abe's hawkish administration," he said.

"Japan appears to believe that the North perhaps could provide some way out of its diplomatic doldrums."

The Nikkei business daily said North Korea had handed Japan a list of at least 10 Japanese nationals who are said to be living in the country, including those believed to have been kidnapped by Pyongyang agents.

The list, which is in Korean, includes names and personal histories, according to Japanese government officials involved in the talks, the paper said.

At a meeting Tuesday, the North Korean delegation also presented details of a planned investigative panel, which Tokyo considers is well authorised to launch the probe, it said.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens to train its spies in Japanese language and customs.

Five of the abductees returned home but Pyongyang said -- without producing credible evidence -- that the eight others had died, provoking an uproar in Japan.

The subject is highly charged in Japan, where there are suspicions that perhaps even hundreds of others were taken.