Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe confirmed his intention to meet with the leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un, speaking on Monday at a press conference in Hiroshima.
“Interacting with the international community, I must meet with Chairman of the Labor Party of Korea Kim Jong-no, hold a dialogue with him and solve the problems of nuclear and missile weapons, the problem of abducted people, and build new Japanese-North Korean relations,” the prime minister said.
At the same time, he said, at present there are no certainties regarding the timing of a possible summit meeting with the DPRK.
In connection with the holding earlier this year of negotiations between Kim Jong Yin and US President Donald Tramp and South Korean President Mun Zhe In, speaking before the dialogue with Pyongyang, Japan has repeatedly stated its readiness for a summit with the DPRK to address, in particular, the issue of stolen Japanese citizens.
In the 70th and 80th years of the last century, North Korean agents kidnapped Japanese citizens for espionage purposes. In 2002, Japan managed to radically shift the issue of stolen Japanese from an unexpected visit to Pyongyang by the then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. North Korea acknowledged that it had abducted Japanese citizens against the backdrop of the “abnormal state of relations” between the two countries and apologized for the hope of establishing official ties between Pyongyang and Tokyo.
The five survivors were given the opportunity to visit their homeland, from where they no longer returned to the DPRK, and Japan, instead of establishing diplomatic relations, began to demand the clarification of the fate of all other abducted citizens and accuse Pyongyang of concealing the facts. The North Korean leadership then found itself offended and deceived, the relations of the two countries returned to the zero point.