North Korea would welcome a third visit to Pyongyang by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted a North Korean official as saying, according to Reuters. Song Il-Ho, vice director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department, told Kyodo in an interview in Pyongyang that North Korea would welcome a visit by any senior Japanese figure, including Koizumi, to improve ties, Kyodo reported on Thursday. Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic ties, and efforts to normalise relations have been blocked by a dispute over Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents decades ago. Kim said at a 2002 summit with Koizumi that Pyongyang had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies. Five were repatriated along with their children, who were born in North Korea. Pyongyang says the other eight are dead. Japan has been pressing for better information on the eight and another three who Tokyo says were also kidnapped. Japan is also worried about North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.
