Japan wants abduction issue resolved during DPRK talks

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a representative from Seoul on Tuesday he wants talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), called to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and missile programs, to resolve a dispute over past abductions of Japanese citizens as well.

"A resolution of the abduction, nuclear and missile issues is Japan's core policy," Abe told Republic of Korea's National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon in Tokyo.

Tokyo's insistence on including discussion of the abductions of its citizens by DPRK's agents could cause friction between Japan, ROK and the United States if Seoul or Washington was willing to cut a denuclearization deal with Pyongyang separate from any abduction agreement.

ROK's National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon shakes hands with Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono before their meeting in Tokyo, Japan, 12 March ,2018. /Reuters Photo

DPRK admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies, and five of them returned to Japan.

Tokyo suspects that hundreds more may have been taken.

Suh urged Japanese cooperation but did not specifically mention the abduction issue.

Suh told reporters after the meeting that Abe had pledged to provide all cooperation for successful inter-Korean summit and US-DPRK summit.

Takuya Yokota shows a picture of his sister Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by DPRK agents decades ago as a schoolgirl, on his smartphone during an interview with Reuters in Tokyo. /Reuters Photo‍

US President Donald Trump has agreed to meet DPRK leader Kim Jong Un by May. ROK's President Moon Jae-in also plans to hold a summit with Kim by the end of April.

Abe, who asked Trump for help to resolve the abduction issue in a telephone call after the announcement of planned US-DPRK talks, has said he plans to travel to the United States next month to meet the US leader.

Source(s): Reuters