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▼ Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida seeks summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
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Tokyo hopes diplomatic breakthrough will boost premier’s domestic popularity
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is intensifying efforts to meet Kim Jong Un, as he pushes for a diplomatic breakthrough with the North Korean leader in a bid to save his faltering premiership.
The summit being pushed by Kishida would seek to secure the release of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago, according to people in Washington and Tokyo familiar with the diplomatic talks.
Kishida stepped up efforts this year after promising signs from Pyongyang. But the people close to the talks — some of which are being conducted via a channel in Beijing — said they have yet to pay off because Kim was refusing to co-operate over the abductees.
Speaking in the Japanese parliament last week, Kishida told lawmakers it was “extremely important for me to take the initiative to build top-level ties” with Pyongyang and that Japan should “not waste any moment”.
Underscoring the sensitivity of the situation, Japan has not told the US about a possible summit, according to people familiar with the situation.
The last meeting between a Japanese prime minister and North Korean leader was in 2004, when Junichiro Koizumi met Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s father, in Pyongyang. The prime minister’s office declined to comment but pointed to Kishida’s recent remarks in a magazine interview where he said he was “making various approaches” towards North Korea and was determined to hold direct talks with Kim “without setting any condition”.
One US official said Washington would welcome high-level engagement between Tokyo and Pyongyang on condition that Japan smooth over any issues in advance with South Korea. South Korea’s conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol has taken a hardline stance against North Korea since his election in 2022.
In one of several ominous signs of rising tensions on the peninsula, Pyongyang recently abandoned its decades-old commitment to eventual reunification with the South.
The US is concerned about North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal and Pyongyang’s supplies of ammunition to Russia for its war against Ukraine. The US has had no meaningful engagement with North Korea since President Joe Biden took office.
Christopher Johnstone, a former CIA and White House Japan expert, said high-level contact between Tokyo and Pyongyang “could be useful” given the lack of communication between the US and South Korea and North Korea. “Japan’s desire to make progress on the abductions issue is understandable and urgent, given the age of the affected families, but it’s a fraught exercise,” said Johnstone, now an analyst at the CSIS think-tank.
“Transparency in advance with both Washington and Seoul will be critical — particularly about any incentives Japan may consider to bring North Korea to the table.”
Progress on abductees would be likely to boost Kishida’s approval rating, which is languishing below 30 per cent amid a domestic political funding scandal. He is also preparing to fly to Washington in April for a high-profile visit that he hopes will boost his popularity at home.
“Considering the public interest on the matter, the only remaining diplomatic card Prime Minister Kishida has to boost his approval rating is relations between Japan and North Korea,” said Masatoshi Honda, a political analyst and academic.
The increased diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang came after Kim sent Kishida a rare condolence message following the powerful earthquake that hit Japan last month, which some Japanese officials viewed as a positive signal.
But officials in Tokyo are also wary that any overture could be designed to disrupt closer military collaboration between Japan, South Korea and the US. The nations’ leaders held a historic trilateral summit at Camp David last year after Kishida and Yoon set aside their countries’ disagreements relating to Japan’s wartime occupation of Korea in an effort to boost deterrence against China and North Korea. Last week, South Korea’s minister of unification Kim Yung Ho told Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper that Seoul would assist Tokyo’s efforts by pressing new arrivals from North Korea for information on the Japanese abductees.
“We’ll share any information we get with Japan,” he said. Clarity on the fate of the abducted Japanese nationals is critical to arranging any summit. Kishida has stressed that a breakthrough is needed given the ages of the families of those abducted.
Go Myong-hyun, senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, said that any progress on the issue was “highly unlikely”, adding: “The North Koreans are playing games with the Japanese and the South Koreans, hoping to drive a wedge between them by feeding Seoul’s fears that Tokyo could do a deal with Pyongyang behind its back.”
Five of the 17 abductees identified by Japan were allowed to return home after Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2002. North Korea has insisted that of the remaining 12, eight had died and four never entered its territory.
Japan has long insisted it would only talk to Pyongyang once it changed its stance on the abductees. Kim’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Russia last year was his first meeting with a foreign leader since he met then-US president Donald Trump and then-South Korean president Moon Jae-in in the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas in 2019.
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is intensifying efforts to meet Kim Jong Un, as he pushes for a diplomatic breakthrough with the North Korean leader in a bid to save his faltering premiership.
The summit being pushed by Kishida would seek to secure the release of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago, according to people in Washington and Tokyo familiar with the diplomatic talks.
Kishida stepped up efforts this year after promising signs from Pyongyang. But the people close to the talks — some of which are being conducted via a channel in Beijing — said they have yet to pay off because Kim was refusing to co-operate over the abductees.
Speaking in the Japanese parliament last week, Kishida told lawmakers it was “extremely important for me to take the initiative to build top-level ties” with Pyongyang and that Japan should “not waste any moment”.
Underscoring the sensitivity of the situation, Japan has not told the US about a possible summit, according to people familiar with the situation.
The last meeting between a Japanese prime minister and North Korean leader was in 2004, when Junichiro Koizumi met Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s father, in Pyongyang. The prime minister’s office declined to comment but pointed to Kishida’s recent remarks in a magazine interview where he said he was “making various approaches” towards North Korea and was determined to hold direct talks with Kim “without setting any condition”.
One US official said Washington would welcome high-level engagement between Tokyo and Pyongyang on condition that Japan smooth over any issues in advance with South Korea. South Korea’s conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol has taken a hardline stance against North Korea since his election in 2022.
In one of several ominous signs of rising tensions on the peninsula, Pyongyang recently abandoned its decades-old commitment to eventual reunification with the South.
The US is concerned about North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal and Pyongyang’s supplies of ammunition to Russia for its war against Ukraine. The US has had no meaningful engagement with North Korea since President Joe Biden took office.
Christopher Johnstone, a former CIA and White House Japan expert, said high-level contact between Tokyo and Pyongyang “could be useful” given the lack of communication between the US and South Korea and North Korea. “Japan’s desire to make progress on the abductions issue is understandable and urgent, given the age of the affected families, but it’s a fraught exercise,” said Johnstone, now an analyst at the CSIS think-tank.
“Transparency in advance with both Washington and Seoul will be critical — particularly about any incentives Japan may consider to bring North Korea to the table.”
Progress on abductees would be likely to boost Kishida’s approval rating, which is languishing below 30 per cent amid a domestic political funding scandal. He is also preparing to fly to Washington in April for a high-profile visit that he hopes will boost his popularity at home.
“Considering the public interest on the matter, the only remaining diplomatic card Prime Minister Kishida has to boost his approval rating is relations between Japan and North Korea,” said Masatoshi Honda, a political analyst and academic.
The increased diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang came after Kim sent Kishida a rare condolence message following the powerful earthquake that hit Japan last month, which some Japanese officials viewed as a positive signal.
But officials in Tokyo are also wary that any overture could be designed to disrupt closer military collaboration between Japan, South Korea and the US. The nations’ leaders held a historic trilateral summit at Camp David last year after Kishida and Yoon set aside their countries’ disagreements relating to Japan’s wartime occupation of Korea in an effort to boost deterrence against China and North Korea. Last week, South Korea’s minister of unification Kim Yung Ho told Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper that Seoul would assist Tokyo’s efforts by pressing new arrivals from North Korea for information on the Japanese abductees.
“We’ll share any information we get with Japan,” he said. Clarity on the fate of the abducted Japanese nationals is critical to arranging any summit. Kishida has stressed that a breakthrough is needed given the ages of the families of those abducted.
Go Myong-hyun, senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, said that any progress on the issue was “highly unlikely”, adding: “The North Koreans are playing games with the Japanese and the South Koreans, hoping to drive a wedge between them by feeding Seoul’s fears that Tokyo could do a deal with Pyongyang behind its back.”
Five of the 17 abductees identified by Japan were allowed to return home after Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2002. North Korea has insisted that of the remaining 12, eight had died and four never entered its territory.
Japan has long insisted it would only talk to Pyongyang once it changed its stance on the abductees. Kim’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Russia last year was his first meeting with a foreign leader since he met then-US president Donald Trump and then-South Korean president Moon Jae-in in the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas in 2019.
- 14/2 15:28
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