A government-organized symposium focused on human rights, including the abductee issue, rather than nuclear weapons.
The Japanese government is seeking to elevate the issue of human rights in North Korea, even as United States-led negotiations on denuclearization appear to be faltering. Of particular concern to Tokyo is the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by the North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s – a regular feature of Japanese diplomacy over the past year.
A government-organized symposium, held in central Tokyo on December 15, sought to wrestle with the vexed issue of how the international community could pursue an improvement in human rights in North Korea when diplomatic efforts have mostly focused on trying to reduce the nuclear weapons threat.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who has ministerial responsibility for the abduction issue, opened the conference by describing North Korea’s human rights abuses as a common challenge for the global community. He noted that a United Nations-established commission of inquiry warned in 2014 that the gravity, scale, and nature of those human rights violations had no parallels in the contemporary world. They included crimes against humanity.
Suga said the Japanese government was “taking every opportunity possible” to raise the abduction issue with other governments, asking for their cooperation to resolve the issue. He reminded the audience that Tokyo had officially recognized 17 Japanese abductees, but acknowledged a further 800 or more incidents where the possibility of North Korean abduction could not be ruled out. Although five abductees were repatriated to Japan in 2002, there have been no subsequent returns – a situation Suga described as “deeply regrettable.”
“When we think about the pain and grief of not only the victims but the family members, who have desperately waited for the return of their loved ones for several years, I can’t think of any words to say,” Suga said. “As a member of the government I feel so shameful.”
The conference heard speeches from some of those family members.
