NKorea complains to UN chief about Japan raids

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 7 (Reuters) Japan has created ''a horrific atmosphere of terror'' for its Korean residents since it began cracking down on their activities, North Korea's UN envoy said today.

In a letter to US Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, North Korean Ambassador Pak Gil Yon called the searches of the offices of pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, illegal.

''Japanese authorities are intensifying suppression on the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan and Koreans in Japan, creating a horrific atmosphere of terror and plunging the human rights issues of Koreans in Japan into a grave situation,'' Pak said.

''Chongryon is a legitimate organisation of overseas citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Japanese brutal oppression on it and Koreans in Japan constitutes the criminal act of infringing upon the sovereignty of a dignified member state of the United Nations.'' The Japanese crackdown on the pro-Pyongyang groups began after North Korea's nuclear and missile tests last year.

Japan has said the raids have led to several arrests and were initiated because some in the group violated accounting and trade laws, amid suspicions that North Korean residents may be helping to finance Pyongyang's weapons programs.

North Korea last month called the Japanese crackdown a ''noisy racket of suppression.'' About 600,000 ethnic Koreans live in Japan, many of them descended from the two million Koreans brought to Japan as forced labor during Tokyo's 1910-45 colonisation of the peninsula.

Of these, about 80,000 are pro-North, while 220,000 support South Korea and the rest are neutral.

Talks between Japan and North Korea on restoring diplomatic relations hit a snag this week over Pyongyang's 2002 admission that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies. Five have been repatriated, but Pyongyang says eight others are dead.

Reuters SRS VP0040