South Korea gave a guarded response yesterday to a Japanese deal to ease sanctions against North Korea, stressing the need to maintain a united front against Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on Thursday that Tokyo would relax some sanctions if North Korea delivers on a pledge to reinvestigate the cases of Japanese nationals kidnapped to train spies.
The breakthrough followed days of talks between the two sides in Sweden, and marked the most significant engagement between Pyongyang and the outside world in many months.
However, it comes at a time when others in the international community are pushing for North Korea’s economic and diplomatic isolation to be deepened, rather than relaxed.
And it will do little to improve ties between Tokyo and Seoul, which are already at their lowest ebb for years over a series of historic bilateral disputes.
In a statement, the South Korean foreign ministry said that Seoul appreciated the emotional pull for Tokyo of the long-standing and highly charged kidnapping issue.
“The government, from a humanitarian standpoint, understands Japan’s stance concerning the issue of Japanese abductees,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The sanctions that Tokyo is considering easing are not of major significance.
“Japan has decided to lift special restrictions on travel by people, reporting requirements on remittances ... as well as the ban on North Korea-registered vessels entering Japanese ports for humanitarian purposes,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
The unilateral sanctions are in addition to UN strictures placed on Pyongyang, which are unaffected.
“Japan will study the possibility of extending humanitarian assistance to North Korea at an appropriate time from a humanitarian standpoint,” a written Japanese statement distributed to reporters said.
North Korea outraged Japan when it admitted more than a decade ago that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to tutor its spies in Japanese language and customs.
Five of the abductees were allowed to return to Japan, but Pyongyang has insisted, without producing solid evidence, that the eight others are dead.
The subject is a highly charged one in Japan, where there are suspicions that dozens or perhaps even hundreds of other people were taken.
“Our mission will never end until the day comes when families of all abduction victims are able to embrace their children with their own arms,” Abe said. “We have tackled the problem with this determination and we hope that this will be the first step toward an overall solution.”
Abe has spent considerable energy on the issue — one he called “a top priority” — since coming to power in late 2012, aware that a victory would give him enormous domestic capital.
However, Toshio Miyatsuka, an expert on North Korean issues at Yamanashi Gakuin University, warned that a win was far from in the bag.
“This is a risky gamble as the abduction issue is a hard one to resolve in a way that everyone will find satisfactory, and North Korea is an unpredictable partner,” he told reporters.
While relations with South Korea remain testy — Pyongyang has unleashed torrents of invective against its neighbor — its attitude toward Japan has softened in recent months.
A conciliatory dispatch by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang’s channel of communication with the outside, stressed the gear shift in ties.
“The Japanese side reclarified its will to settle its inglorious past, solve the pending issues and normalize the relations together with the DPRK [North Korean] side,” the report said.
“The DPRK side agreed to simultaneously conduct a comprehensive survey of all Japanese, including the remains and graves of Japanese, remaining Japanese, Japanese spouses, victims of abduction and missing persons,” KCNA said.
KCNA added that the North would take “necessary measures” to return any remains to Japan.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
RSS