Japan, North Korea Red Cross officials meet in China in possible step toward government talks

SHENYANG, China – Japanese and North Korean Red Cross officials met in China on Monday in what Japan hopes will be a step toward talks on the return of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Red Cross meeting dealt with a different issue, the return of the remains of 21,600 Japanese who died in Korea during the chaos at the end of World War II.

Japanese and North Korean Foreign Ministry officials also attended the meeting in Shenyang, a Chinese city about 210 kilometres (130 miles) from the border with North Korea, and the Japanese side hoped to feel out its North Korean counterparts on possible talks on the kidnappings and other issues.

North Korea allowed five kidnapped Japanese to return home in 2002, but Japan believes at least a dozen others also were kidnapped and wants them returned, if they are still alive.

The last time the two Red Cross Societies met was in 2012. Since then, delegations of Japanese family members have visited the graves of their relatives in North Korea nine times. Some are buried on hills in the outskirts of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Japan colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945 and an estimated 34,600 Japanese soldiers, government officials and family members died of hunger or disease there at the end of World War II. Of those, the remains of 13,000 have been repatriated.

The 2012 Red Cross talks also led to the first government-to-government meeting between Japan and North Korea in four years. The brief warming of relations came to an end after North Korea launched a rocket in December 2012.