Hatoyama denies abductions linked to excluding pro-Pyongyang schools

TOKYO, Feb. 26 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Friday that the government will decide
whether to exclude pro-Pyongyang senior high schools for Korean residents in
Japan from a proposed tuition waiver program depending on their curricula,
stressing that North Korea's past abductions of Japanese nationals will not
play a part in the decision.
''For the program, school curricula will definitely be one thing to be
considered,'' Hatoyama told reporters Friday morning. ''But the problem is
whether we can examine the curricula of a country that does not have any
diplomatic ties (with Japan).''
''It has nothing to do with the abduction issue,'' he said.
Hatoyama added that the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Ministry ''has led the discussions on the issue and we have not yet reached a
conclusion.''
He later told reporters in the evening, ''We have to discuss whether it is
desirable for Japanese people to treat them (schools linked to a country that
does not have diplomatic ties with Japan) the same way (as Japanese schools).''
''Based on common sense, it is not such a strange idea that Japanese people and
those from countries that maintain diplomatic relations are given priority,''
he said. ''Under my fraternity philosophy, however, it is not appropriate to
bring about conflicts with countries that have different regimes.''
Members of the Cabinet are divided over the issue of whether to exclude such
schools from the program, which is set to be established by a bill that has
been under deliberation in the House of Representatives since Thursday.
Hiroshi Nakai, state minister in charge of abduction issues involving North
Korea, has been calling for the schools to be excluded and repeated his view
Friday that the program is a national measure and the fact that Japan has
imposed sanctions on North Korea must be considered.
Nakai also said he has asked education minister Tatsuo Kawabata to exclude
pro-Pyongyang schools.
But Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano denied at a press conference that
the government is leaning toward excluding pro-Pyongyang schools.
Hirano said that the bill stipulates that the program will be applied to
educational institutions that have curricula similar to those in Japanese
public senior high schools and that the government will lay out a ministerial
ordinance later to determine which schools will be eligible for the program.
''I don't think it is possible'' that the abductions will become an issue with
regard to the program, the government's top spokesman said.
At a separate press conference, Kawabata said that his ministry is examining
how to establish criteria for determining which institutions can be regarded as
the same as senior high schools.
He said earlier that diplomatic considerations will not be a deciding factor.
Mizuho Fukushima, consumer affairs minister and head of the Social Democratic
Party, underscored the need for developing the discussions in terms of
equality.
Fukushima said that as the proposed program ''is a system to ensure children's
right to learn, the government should support as many children as possible.''
Under the proposed bill, about 120,000 yen per annum would be provided per
student from April.
==Kyodo