Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, are exploring a possible meeting to discuss the abduction of Japanese nationals and Pyongyang’s pledge to move towards denuclearisation.
S hinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, are exploring a possible meeting to discuss the abduction of Japanese nationals and Pyongyang’s pledge to move towards denuclearisation.
Kim told Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, at a historic summit on Friday that he was „ready for dialogue with Japan at any time.“ The message was relayed by Mr Moon in a phone call to Mr Abe on Sunday.
South Korean intelligence chief, Suh Hoon, also debriefed the Japanese leader about the inter-Korean summit, during a visit to Tokyo. Mr Abe had expressed „deep interest“, he later told reporters.
Mr Abe is now expected to start taking steps towards arranging the suggested bilateral Tokyo-Pyongyang summit.
Before leaving on a five-day Middle East tour, he thanked Mr Moon for his “sincerity” for keeping his word to raise the long-standing and sensitive issue of Japanese abductions with Kim.
At least 17 Japanese citizens were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s to help train their spies, an issue that Mr Abe has repeatedly pledged to tackle throughout his political career.
The abductions, in addition to denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, would dominate the agenda of any bilateral summit.
H owever, Japan has reacted cautiously to the joint North-South Korean pledge at Friday’s meeting to work towards “complete denuclearisation”, pointing to the absence of a clear roadmap for doing so.
“We shouldn’t be caught up in the moment and swing too far in a reconciliatory direction,” an anonymous senior foreign ministry official source told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
H owever, North Korea appears keen to show it is acting in good faith. On Monday, Pyongyang said that it would reset its clocks by half an hour this coming Saturday to realign with South Korea, in the latest conciliatory gesture in leader Kim’s ongoing international charm offensive.
