U.S. rejects linking Japan abductees to North Korea deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States rejects formally linking the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea to diplomatic rewards for Pyongyang's pledged denuclearization, the U.S. nuclear envoy said on Wednesday.

But Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told a U.S. Senate panel that ally Japan would not be left "in the lurch" or dealt any unpleasant surprises as Washington moves forward with a nuclear disarmament pact with Pyongyang.

The fate of at least 12 Japanese kidnapped by North Koreans decades ago is a highly emotive issue in Japan and a stumbling block that has kept Tokyo and Pyongyang from normalizing ties.

Japan worries that the United States will remove North Korea from its list of nations sponsoring terrorism before a resolution of the issue. Tokyo has urged Washington to postpone delisting North Korea until it comes clean on the abductees.

North Korea was added to that list in 1988 after one of its agents confessed to blowing up a South Korean passenger jet in late 1987. Pyongyang expects to be delisted for scrapping its nuclear arms programs under a regional disarmament pact.

"I don't think it's in our country's interest or Japan's interest or anyone's interest to make these hard linkages in advance," Hill told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But Hill said he assured Japan that "we will not have surprises between us and we will work in a way that we come out of this with our relationship strengthened."

Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, five of whom have since been repatriated to Japan.

North Korea says the other eight are dead, but Tokyo wants more information about their fate as well as information on another four people it says were kidnapped.