Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said any summit he holds with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un must tackle abducted citizens, an issue that has bedeviled relations between the two nations for decades.
North Korea kidnapped scores of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help Pyongyang train its spies, a sore point that Tokyo says has never been adequately addressed.
“In the end, I have to meet Chairman Kim Jong-un,” Abe told the Sankei Shimbun in an interview published yesterday, adding that he wanted to “break mutual distrust” between the two sides.
Photo: AFP
However, he added: “As long as we hold a meeting, the meeting must contribute to the resolution of the abduction issue.”
Tokyo and Pyongyang have long had tense relations, from historical grievances of Japan’s wartime brutalities on the Korean Peninsula to Pyongyang’s regular saber-rattling, including recent missile tests last year that sent rockets toward Japan.
Recent months have seen a remarkable diplomatic detente on the Korean Peninsula, with Kim holding summits with US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Tokyo fears being shut out of negotiations on North Korea, which have proceeded at a breakneck pace in recent months with Japan largely on the sidelines.
During talks with Trump in Singapore, Kim reportedly said he was open to a meeting with Abe.
Trump promised to work to help have abductees returned from North Korea.
Abe also said Japan-China relations have gotten back “on the completely right track.”
“I’m looking forward to visiting China and then want to invite [Chinese] President Xi Jinping [吸金平] to Japan,” he said.
The world’s second and third-largest economies also have a fraught relationship, complicated by longstanding maritime disputes and Japan’s wartime history.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in