Tokyo: After the US and neighbour South Korea, Pyongyang on Saturday called for improving bilateral ties with Japan, responding to Hatoyama`s statement earlier.
Kim Yong-nam, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme
People`s Assembly and second in the hierarchy in North Korea,
sent greetings to the league of Korean citizens living in
Japan, asking them to promote relations between the two
countries.
"The League is hoped to make a positive contribution to
bilateral relations in the spirit of the Pyongyang Declaration
signed in 2002 during a visit to North Korea by former
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi," the North Korean
Central News Agency reported today.
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took charge
of the government last September, earlier had declared that
Tokyo was prepared to normalise the relations with North Korea
if the leadership took a big stride forward, giving up its
nuclear ambitions, and provided information about the fate of
the Japanese people who were kidnapped by Pyongyang secret
services in the 1970s-1980s.
PTI
