By Sakura Murakami
TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he supported his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida’s attempts to hold face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“I have confidence in Japan,” Biden told reporters this week during Kishida’s state visit to Washington. “I think it’s a good thing to seek dialogue with him.”
Kishida hopes to become the first Japanese leader in 20 years to hold leadership talks with nuclear-armed Pyongyang, but his prospects for doing so remain unclear.
WHY IS JAPAN SEEKING A SUMMIT?
While Kishida says he is willing to hold talks without preconditions, the burning issue he wants to resolve is that of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.
According to the Japanese government, 17 people were kidnapped by the reclusive state. Five returned to Japan in 2002 after previous summit talks, but 12 still remain missing.
North Korea said the matter had been resolved. It was previously said that the missing Japanese nationals had either died or that nothing was known about their whereabouts.
There is widespread public support for solving the abductee problem, and Japan is encouraged to take action while the abductee’s elderly family members are still alive.
The abductees’ poster child, Megumi Yokota, was just 13 years old when she was kidnapped on her way home from school in 1977. Her mother continues to campaign for her return despite North Korea claiming she committed suicide.
At a meeting with the families last May, Kishida said he would directly oversee high-level talks with North Korean counterparts to try to make the summit a reality.
Is North Korea open to this?
North Korea has so far remained non-committal to Kishida’s repeated calls for a summit.
Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, said in February there was no obstacle to closer ties with Japan and there could come a day when Kishida visits Pyongyang, state news agency KCNA reported.
Japan said it would not comment on the statement, but added that North Korea’s position that the abduction issue had been resolved was unacceptable.
A month later, Kim Yo Jong made another statement saying North Korea was not interested in a summit with Japan and would reject any talks, according to KCNA.
Kim accused Tokyo of “holding on to the unattainable problems,” the KCNA report said.
Has there ever been a summit?
In a historic first, then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi traveled to Pyongyang in 2002 to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Il.
Although North Korea denied any involvement in the abduction issue, the 2002 summit proved to be a breakthrough when Kim Jong Il admitted some of the abductions.
Koizumi and Kim Jong Il met again in Pyongyang in 2004, the last leadership talks between the two countries.
Although Japanese and North Korean officials have met since then, relations over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs have deteriorated, with the North conducting a series of test launches and Japan calling the country a threat to regional stability.
Could it backfire?
With North Korea refusing to engage when the issue of abductees is on the negotiating table, Kishida risks coming home empty-handed should he visit Pyongyang.
Failure to achieve tangible benefits through cooperation with a nuclear-armed state that continues to fire missiles into the waters around Japan could hurt Kishida’s already low domestic approval ratings.
Although Kishida has expressed his desire to meet with Kim Jong Un as early as possible, some government officials say privately that this could be a politically risky undertaking.