NoKor nuke talks, JPEPA ("NO OPAs?") on dinner menu at Palace

JAPAN WANTS “early and concrete results” from any resumption of six-party talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear program, visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in Manila on Sunday.
Abe and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also called for the early resumption of the talks on North Korea even as they condemned recent missile launches and nuclear tests by that country.

In remarks after a dinner late Saturday, Abe, who was on an official visit to the Philippines, said in Japanese that “if the six-party talks are resumed, we want early and concrete results.”
Abe said that even in the early stages of the talks, “there should be results already because there will already have been consultations before that.” He also said that if the talks were resumed, Japan would bring up the issue of the Japanese citizens who were abducted and were still being held in North Korea.

“The abduction issue is a priority issue of my administration. I will continue to ask the North Koreans to hand over and secure safely the Japanese they abducted.”

A US newspaper reported that the talks would resume in Beijing on Saturday but this had not been confirmed.

The six-party talks involving China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia began in 2003 but had been stalled for the past year over North Korean objections to US financial sanctions.
In a joint statement, Ms Arroyo and Abe “expressed their grave concern about the recent developments on the Korean peninsula.”

“They condemned the recent missile launches and nuclear tests conducted by North Korea and urged North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs,” the joint Philippine-Japanese statement said.

The two leaders also “urged North Korea to respond to other security and humanitarian concerns of the international community including the abduction issue.”

Abe arrived in Manila on Friday for an official visit and left early Sunday. He was originally scheduled to attend a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Cebu but it was postponed due to an approaching typhoon.

In his talks with Ms Arroyo, Abe also assured the President that the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) would not result in Tokyo dumping its toxic wastes in the Philippines.
With the assurance, Malacañang now expects a swift Senate ratification of the trade pact.

“The assurance made by Prime Minister Abe should dispel once and for all the unfounded allegations and speculations about the JPEPA and we expect that this will result to the speedy ratification by the Senate,” Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said yesterday.

President Arroyo had already endorsed the JPEPA to the Senate for its ratification.

In his “View from the Palace” column, Bunye said that the Arroyo administration was standing behind the JPEPA as “an instrument for Philippine prosperity and stability and as a monument to our mutually beneficial relationship with Japan.”

Japan remains the Philippines’ biggest foreign funding donor, committing an estimated $1.3 billion in new investments, grants and loans to the country including assistance to the country’s weather bureau. Agence France-Presse with reports from Christine O. Avendaño and Nikko Dizon