Frozen Abductees Negotiation

Negotiation between Japan and North Korea over Japanese abductees issue has been making no progress for a long time. While the people were having no interest on the issue, Asahi Shimbun released a report that North Korea had been keeping the line of no change in former official announcement. That indicated rigid attitude of North Korea rejecting compromise to Japan. For Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been known as a hardliner against the North, gridlock of the negotiation may cause further loss of his popularity.

Both governments of Japan and North Korea agreed that the North would be starting over investigation on Japanese abductees in May last year. One month later, North Korea launched special committee for the investigation, pretending to be serious about implementing the agreement. With positive mood between two governments, there was a speculation in Japan that Abe would visit the North and bring some abductees back with him.

Those optimistic expectations did not last long. In mid-September last year, North Korea began to buy time in the negotiation. “The investigation as a whole requires one year and we are still on the initial stage,” announced the government. Getting close to one-year period, the North unilaterally postponed the deadline of investigation this July. There is no deadline for the investigation so far.

According to Asahi’s report, North Korea has not changed its conclusion that eight died and four had not entered the state among twelve registered abductees, on which the North promised detailed research. In the summit talk between former Prime Minister Jun-ichiro Koizumi and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2002, the North announced that five were alive and eight had been dead. There has been no change in the line that eight abductees, including symbolic figure Megumi Yokota, were dead already. Japanese government does not believe in that story.

On the other hand, the North required Japan ten billion yen for research of cemetery of deceased Japanese in Korean Peninsula around the end of World War II. Although the North has been offering return of ashes of victims to Japan, Japanese government has shown no interest in the offer, worrying about negative impact on abductees issue.

No progress in the negotiation indicates that hardlining policy of Abe administration has certain limitation. Law enforcement authority of Japanese government has been laying strict regulation on the North’s financial organization in Japan. It is obvious that strategy of stick and no carrot does not work for Japan-North Korea relationship. Abe should not have planted too much great expectation on Japanese public.