Japan's prime minister asks to meet Kim Jong-un, says sister

North Korea

Published: 25 Mar. 2024, 17:34

Japan's prime minister asks to meet Kim Jong-un, says sister

In this footage released by Pyongyang's state-controlled Korean Central Television on Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects a tank during a visit to the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards' 105th Tank Division and the First Tank Armored Infantry Regiment the previous day. [YONHAP]

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sent a message to North Korea calling for a meeting with leader Kim Jong-un, according to comments by Kim’s powerful sister relayed by the regime’s state media on Monday.

In a report carried by Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim Yo-jong said that Kishida used an unspecified channel to “convey his intention to personally meet” the North Korean leader “as soon as possible.”

But Kim, who serves as vice director of the propaganda arm of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said that whether a potential summit improves relations between Pyongyang and Tokyo hinges on Japan’s agenda for the meeting.

She warned Japan against pursuing a summit to discuss North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese citizens or to “interfere” with the North’s “sovereign rights” in an apparent reference to the regime’s weapons tests.

“If Japan continues to interfere with the exercise of our sovereign rights, as it is doing now, and keeps focusing on the abduction issue, which it is incapable of resolving or even understanding, the [Japanese] prime minister’s outreach will invariably appear as little more than a publicity stunt,” she said.

Kim Jong-un's sister welcomes Kishida's comments, but with caveats

In a 2002 meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Kim’s father and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted that Pyongyang abducted 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies.

Although North Korea allowed five of the abductees to temporarily visit Japan as part of a deal, Tokyo subsequently refused to return them.

Pyongyang says the abduction issue has been resolved because the eight other victims died, but failed to produce conclusive evidence or remains to prove their deaths.

Tokyo officially recognizes 17 Japanese citizens as abductees taken by North Korean agents, leaving four unaccounted for.

Kim Yo-jong also said Kishida “should know that he won’t be able to meet our country’s leadership just because he wants to or just because he’s determined to.”

Kim made similar comments in February, when she said a visit by the Japanese prime minister might take place in the future, but only if “Japan drops its bad habit of unreasonably criticizing the DPRK over its legitimate right to self-defense and does not lay a stumbling block like the already settled abduction issue in the pathway for mending bilateral relations.”

DPRK refers to the acronym for the North’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Kim also said that the North will consider Japan “an enemy within range as long as it is hostile and infringes our sovereign rights.”

Earlier Monday, Pyongyang’s state media reported that Kim Jong-un visited a tank division that was the first to enter Seoul during the 1950-53 Korean War and encouraged his military to step up battle preparations amid growing inter-Korean tensions.

Kishida, who according to Japanese media initially appeared unaware of the KCNA report’s release, later said the same day that he is still committed to bringing up the abduction issue in talks with the North.

“As I have said in the past, I am approaching North Korea directly in various ways in the belief that top-level talks are important to resolving issues such as the abduction problem,” Kishida told a House of Councillors committee.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]