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.
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