(SomaliNet) Japanese officials on Monday denied Pyongyang's allegation that Japan had kidnapped a North Korean, saying the claim will not affect Tokyo's plan to press the North over its abductions of Japanese citizens. In a request just before multinational talks on North Korea's nuclear program resumed in China, Pyongyang said Japan was presumed to have abducted a North Korean linguist who went missing in 1991. Japan Foreign Ministry spokesman Noriyuki Shikata denied the allegation. North Korea has admitted abducting 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to tutor its spies in the Japanese language and culture. Pyongyang has allowed five to return home, but said the others are dead. It has refused to respond to demands for more information.
Shikata said North KoreaÂ’s allegation will not affect Japan's plan to pressure Pyongyang, during the six-country nuclear disarmament talks, for more concessions over the abductions of Japanese citizens. The talks resumed Monday, more than a year after North Korea walked out of negotiations involving Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. Although the talks focus on dismantling the North's nuclear program, Japan also wants to resolve the abduction dispute, Shikata said.
North Korea maintains the abduction issue is finished, and has said Japan should not join the six-nation nuclear talks if it keeps raising it. Some participants in the talks have indicated concern about the possibility for the abduction dispute to complicate the main disarmament negotiations.
