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The North Korean Peace Process and the Abduction Problem: A Japanese Role?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Extract

In a 3 May 2019 interview with Sankei Shimbun, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo said,

“To resolve the abductions problem, nothing is more important than for Japan to adopt a positive approach. To break through the current mutual distrust between our two counties there is no other way than for me as Prime Minister to meet directly with Chairman Kim. So I am thinking to meet Chairman Kim without any preconditions for frank and open-ended talks.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2019

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References

Notes

1 The Japanese original of this article by Wada Haruki was published in the August 2019 issue of the Japanese monthly, Sekai (pp. 46-53) as “Rachi mondai to Beicho heiwa purosesu” [The abduction problem and the US-North Korea peace process]. The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus acknowledges with thanks the permission to translate given by author Wada Haruki and Sekai editor Kumagai Shinichiro.

2 For provisional translation of the Policy Speech by Prime Minister Abe to the 198th Session of the Diet, 28 January 2019, see here.

3 See text of the Pyongyang Declaration attached as an appendix to this article.

4 Translator note: On the dispute over the DNA analysis of remains handed over by North Korea as belonging to Yokota Megumi, see my analysis: Gavan McCormack, “Disputed Bones: Japan, North Korea, and the ‘Nature’ Controversy,”, and “Disputed Bones – Japan-North Korea Clash,” Japan Focus, 13 June 2005.