Kishida Fumio hopes to become the first Japanese leader to hold talks with North Korea in 20 years (file photo)
Tokyo:
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he supports Japanese President Fumio Kishida’s attempts to hold face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“I have confidence in Japan,” Biden told reporters during Kishida’s state visit to Washington this week. “I think it’s a good thing to seek dialogue with him.”
Kishida hopes to become the first Japanese leader in 20 years to hold leadership talks with nuclear-armed Pyongyang, but his prospects of doing so remain unclear.
Why is Japan seeking a summit?
While Kishida has expressed a willingness to hold talks without preconditions, the pressing issue he wants to resolve is the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Japanese government says 17 people have been kidnapped in the isolated country. In 2002, five people returned to Japan after talks at the last summit, but 12 people are still missing.
North Korea says the problem has been resolved. It has previously said that the unaccounted for Japanese nationals are either dead or their whereabouts are not known.
Solving the abduction issue has received widespread public support and prompted Japan to take action while the abductees’ elderly family members are still alive.
The poster child for kidnapping was Megumi Yokota, who was abducted on her way home from school in 1977 when she was just 13 years old. Although North Korea said she committed suicide, her mother continues to lobby for her return.
During a meeting with families last May, Kishida said he would directly oversee high-level discussions with his North Korean counterparts in an effort to achieve a summit.
Is North Korea open to this?
North Korea has so far remained silent on Kishida’s repeated calls for a summit.
Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, said in February that there were no obstacles to closer ties with Japan and that Kishida might one day visit Pyongyang, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Japan said it would not comment on the statement but added that North Korea’s position that the abduction issue had been resolved was unacceptable.
A month later, Kim Yo Jong issued another statement saying North Korea had no interest in holding a summit with Japan and would reject any talks, KCNA reported.
KCNA reported that Kim Jong-un accused Tokyo of being “obsessed with unsolvable problems.”
Have you held a summit before?
In 2002, then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi went to Pyongyang to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il for the first time in history.
Although North Korea denied any involvement in the kidnappings, the 2002 summit proved to be a breakthrough, with Kim Jong Il admitting to some kidnappings.
In 2004, Koizumi and Kim Jong-il met again in Pyongyang, which was the last meeting between the leaders of the two countries.
Although Japanese and North Korean officials have since met, relations between the two countries have soured over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, which have seen North Korea conduct numerous tests and Japan calls North Korea a threat to regional stability.
Will it backfire?
If the abduction issue is put on the negotiating table, North Korea will refuse to participate, and Kishida may return empty-handed if he visits Pyongyang.
Engagement with a nuclear-armed state that continues to launch missiles into the sea surrounding Japan would not lead to any tangible victory and could damage Kishida’s already low domestic approval ratings.
While Kishida has said he hopes to meet Kim Jong Un as soon as possible, some government officials say privately that this could be a politically risky strategy.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
