Associate Professor of Rikkyo University Koichi Ishizaka, co-representative and secretary general of the liaison council, made a report at the meeting.

The Japan-DPRK relations, which had seemed to improve for a while after inter-governmental talks held in Stockholm, Sweden in May last year, were driven into the worst phase after the Japanese police authorities' violence against the chairman and a vice-chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, the reporter said.

Instable situation has been created in Northeast Asia owing to the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK, he added.

He denounced the Japanese authorities for pushing ahead with the security bill and referred to the significance of normalizing the ties between Japan and the DPRK.

He raised it as this year's task of the liaison council to realize the normalization of the ties and urge the Japanese government to make sincere apology and reparation for the past crimes and oppose human rights abuses against Koreans in Japan.

Haruki Wata, honorary professor at University of Tokyo who is advisor to the liaison council, and other personages gave lectures for earlier normalization of the Japan-DPRK relations.

The meeting adopted an appeal demanding the Japanese government make positive efforts for early normalization of the relations with the DPRK.