N. Korea President Holds First Talks With Japan Party Leader

North Korean President Kim Il Sung today met a top leader of Japan’s ruling party for the first time and apparently agreed to release two Japanese fishermen North Korea has held as “spies” for seven years.

He also was quoted as saying he hopes that Japan and North Korea, which have not had normal diplomatic ties since 1910, will become close not only in geographic proximity but also in dealings with each other.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Shin Kanemaru handed Kim, 78, the world’s longest-ruling dictator, a letter of apology and a promise of compensation signed by Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu for the “agony and damage” Japan inflicted on Korea during its 1910-45 colonial rule. He also verbally repeated a pledge to pay reparations even without establishing diplomatic relations.

Kim, reports reaching here said, thanked Kanemaru and praised his decision to make the trip to North Korea, the first ever by a leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Reports from Japanese journalists traveling with the 90-member mission of Parliament members and government officials said that the meeting, which lasted an hour and a half, was held at a retreat 94 miles north of Pyongyang. The mission, jointly headed by Makoto Tanabe, vice chairman of Japan’s opposition Socialist Party, traveled by train three hours Tuesday night to reach the resort.

After the meeting, Kim received all of the members of the delegation at a reception and told them that he had decided to make “a generous decision” in response to Kanemaru’s appeal for the release of the two Japanese fishermen.

“The meeting with Kim produced happy results for Japan,” Kanemaru said in reply.

North Korea insists that it cannot establish formal relations with Japan because, given Tokyo’s ties with Seoul, such a move would recognize as permanent the post-World War II division of Korea.