JAPAN SO TELLS SOUTH KOREA FOR NORTH KOREA

TOKYO : Japan tells South Korea it wants abductions issued resolved in North Korea talks.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a South Korean representative on last Tuesday he wants talks with North Korea, called to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and-

Missile programme to resolve a dispute over past abductions of Japanese citizens as well.

''A resolution of the abduction, nuclear and missile issues is Japan's core policy,'' Abe told South Korean National Intelligence Service  chief Suh Hoon in Tokyo.

''North Korea must match its words with actions,'' Abe said at a start of a  meeting to discuss planned talks between the two Koreas and between Pyongyang and Washington.

Tokyo's insistence on including discussion of the abductions of its citizens by North Korean agents could cause friction between Japan, South Korea and the United States if-

Seoul or Washington were willing to cut a denuclearization deal with Pyongyang separate from any abduction agreement.

North Korea admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies, and five of them returned to Japan.

Tokyo suspects that hundreds more may have been taken.

Suh urged Japanese cooperation but did not specifically mention the abduction issue.

''Cooperation between the leaders of South Korea and Japan is important for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the resolution of the missile issue,'' Suh said.

Pyongyang's professed desire to abandon nuclear weapons was significant because it came directly from North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, he said.

Suh told reporters after the meeting that Abe had pledged to provide all cooperation for the successful summits between two Koreas and United States and North Korea [Agencies].