Japanese and North Korean officials started
two days of talks in Pyongyang on October 28th to assess progress in North
Korea’s investigation into Japanese citizens who were thought to have been
abducted by North Korean agents in the 70s and 80s.
Japan will have 12 officials at the talks, with eight from North Korea attending, including Kang Song Nam, who is charged with heading the
North’s special investigatory committee on the abductees.
According to a Kyodo News report, Japan’s
chief delegate Junichi Ihara announced on the previous day, “The issue of the
abductees is a high-priority issue for Japan.”
“This is the right choice for North
Korea and Japan to reach an agreement,” Ihara stated regarding Japan’s
choice to go to Pyongyang.
This is the first time in 10
years–the last being November 2004– that a Japanese delegation has visited
North Korea to discuss the issue of the abductees.
Japanese negotiator Junichi Ihara and his
North Korean counterpart, Song Il Ho, held a day of talks in the
northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang last month on the 29th, during which the
North Korean Foreign Minister stated, “Send a delegation so that they can
hear about the status of the investigation themselves.”
At the end of May 2014, high-level talks
between North Korea and Japan in Stockholm, Sweden led to a subsequent meeting
in July where after North Korea’s special investigatory committee launched a
probe into the whereabouts of the Japanese abductees; Japan lifted some of its
unilateral sanctions against North Korea in response.
