Japan's Abe says North Korea can settle old kidnapping row

May 29, 2013|Reuters

TOKYO, May 29 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
said on Wednesday he believed North Korea's young leader was
capable of making the right decision to resolve a dispute over
kidnapped Japanese citizens, repeating he was open to a summit
if it would settle the row.

Abe made his remarks in a television interview two weeks
after a surprise visit to Pyongyang by his aide, Isao Iijima.
That visit upset South Korea and the United States, both of
which feared Tokyo might do a deal on abductees without
addressing North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

Iijima's visit to Pyongyang and talks with senior officials
there fuelled speculation that Abe might seek a summit with Kim
Jong-un to achieve a breakthrough ahead of a July 21 upper house
election to boost his already high popularity ratings.

"The important thing is whether I can achieve results by
going there and negotiating," Abe told Japanese TV station TBS.

"If the problem is resolved, holding a summit would be an
option naturally. But if not, holding a summit for the sake of a
summit would mean nothing."

Ties with North Korea have long been fraught over Japan's
1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang's
missile and nuclear programmes and Japanese anger over the
abduction of its citizens by North Korean agents decades ago.

"Kim Jong-un was not involved in kidnapping operations
basically. It's true that his father did it, but he's got
nothing to do with it," Abe said. "I think his administration
will be capable of deciding to do the right thing as a new

Kim Jong-un's father, the late Kim Jong-il, admitted during
then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to North Korea in
2002 that Pyongyang's agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens
in the 1970s and 1980s.

Five abductees were later repatriated. Pyongyang says the
other eight are dead, but Tokyo wants more information about
them and others it believes were also kidnapped.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Ron Popeski)