평화군축센터 핵없는 세상 2005-07-19   1097

미 의회, 북한 납치문제 6자회담 의제 촉구(AP 통신, 2005. 7. 11)

미 하원은 11일 북한의 한국인 및 일본인 납치문제를 이달말 재개되는 북핵 6자회담의 의제로 추가시킬 것을 부시 행정부에 촉구했다.

하원은 이같은 내용의 결의안을 362대 1로 통과시켜 상원으로 넘겼다.

결의안은 법적 구속력은 없으며, 상원과의 공동 결의안이기 때문에 부시 대통령의 서명은 필요로 하지 않는다.

결의안은 지난 수십년에 걸친 북한의 한국인.일본인 납치를 “테러행위이자 심대한 인권침해”라고 비난하면서 미국 정부가 이 문제를 6자회담에서 취급할 것을 요구했다.

결의안은 북핵 문제의 해결이 긴요하다는 점을 인정하면서도 “이것으로 인해 미국 정부의 관리들이 향후 북한과의 회담에서 납치 문제와 그밖의 중대한 인권문제를 제기하지 못해서는 안된다”고 강조했다.

이번 결의안은 이달 마지막주 개최되는 6자회담에서 일본인 납치문제를 북한과 논의하도록 노력하겠다는 일본 정부의 발표와 때를 같이해 나온 것이다.

또한 이번 결의안은 북한이 국가주도의 납치행위를 포기하고 모든 납치 사례를 완전히 해명할 때까지 북한을 테러지원국 명단에 계속 올려둘 것을 요구하고 있다.

(원문)

Resolution in U.S. Congress urges administration to put abductions on North Korea talks agenda

By WILLIAM C. MANN Associated Press Writer

(AP) – WASHINGTON-The House of Representatives urged the Bush administration on Monday to add the status of Japanese and South Koreans kidnapped by North Korea to the agenda of nuclear negotiations set to resume this month with the communist state.

The nonbinding resolution, passed 362 votes to one, with one member voting “present,” now goes to the Senate for action. As a concurring resolution, enactment does not require President George W. Bush’s signature.

The resolution’s introduction in Congress coincided with an announcement in Tokyo that the Japanese government will try to discuss the kidnapping question with the North Koreans on the sidelines of the six-party talks, set to resume the week of July 25.

North Korea announced Saturday it would return to the bargaining table to discuss its nuclear weapons program, ending an embargo it began more than a year ago over alleged disrespect by the Americans such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s description of Kim Jong Il’s government as an “outpost of tyranny.” Besides the two Koreas, the United States and Japan, China and Russia are participating in the talks.

The House resolution condemned as “acts of terrorism and gross violations of human rights” the North Korean government’s role in kidnapping South Korean and Japanese individuals over the decades and urged the administration to air the subject in the talks.

While recognizing that resolving the nuclear question is critically important, the document said, “this should not preclude United States government officials from raising abduction cases and other critical human rights concerns in any future negotiations with the North Korean regime.”

In proposing the resolution, Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey, chairman of the House International Relations human rights subcommittee, accused North Korea of “continued involvement in the kidnapping of thousands of innocent people.”

During the 1950-1953 Korean War, Smith said, more than 7,000 South Koreans were abducted: “film producers and fishermen, housewives and ministers, airline attendants and university students, mothers and even children.”

In the decades after the war, North Korea kidnapped 407 South Korean fishermen, most of whom remain unaccounted for.

The resolution said hundreds of South Korean soldiers taken prisoner during the war have not been released, and many have been subjected to forced labor and other harsh treatment.

North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to teach its spies the ways and language of Japan. Five were allowed to return in recent years, but the North Koreans said the rest have died.

Japanese leaders have rejected North Korea’s explanations as not credible. In Tokyo on Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Rice, visiting Japan during a swing through Asia, would be asked to reinforce Japan’s efforts to find answers from North Korean negotiators.

The resolution passed Monday also demanded that the Bush administration keep North Korea on the State Department’s list of terrorist-exporting countries “until such time that North Korea renounces state-sponsored kidnapping and provides a full accounting of all abduction cases.”

2005-07-11T23:29:40Z

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