N Korea, Japan trade blame

The 2002 summit was aimed at repairing Japan-N Korea relations

North Korea has called on Japan to make reparations for its harsh war-time rule of the Korean peninsula, one year on from an historic summit between the two countries.

"Japan should opt for redeeming its past," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

The September 2002 summit raised hopes the two countries would establish diplomatic relations, but a row over missing Japanese nationals proved a serious setback.

The North Korean statement said Tokyo was "making much fuss" about North Korea's admission it had kidnapped Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s, even though Japan had not compensated for its own human rights abuses.

North Korea allowed five kidnap victims to return to Japan last year.

But Tokyo now wants Pyongyang to return their families who were left behind.

"We must resolve the abduction issue. We, as the government, want to make utmost efforts to deal with the urgent issue," government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference on Wednesday.

Yearning for family

On the eve of the anniversary, one of the Japanese citizens whose family is still in North Korea spoke of her sadness.

Hitomi Soga, who has an ex-US serviceman husband and two children in the North, said she initially felt "as if someone had saved me" when she was allowed to come home, but that now she is "filled with pain" at being separated.

Kidnap victim Hitomi Soga wants her North Korean family returned

"Now I am alone and my family is left over there," she told a nationally televised news conference.

The 17 September 2002 summit between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il paved the way for a resumption of talks on establishing diplomatic ties between Japan and North Korea.

But those talks quickly foundered on the continuing suspicions over North Korea's nuclear programme.

Since then, a number of incidents in Japan have served to heighten tensions between the two sides.

A ferry that travels between Japan and North Korea has been repeatedly searched for contraband by Japanese authorities, and last month, Tokyo authorities seized properties belonging to North Korea's de facto representative office in Japan.

A week ago, a self-professed rightist made a bomb threat against the Japanese diplomat who set up the Japan-North Korea 2002 summit, charging he was too soft on Pyongyang.