TOKYO – New Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi showed her eagerness on Thursday to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, renewing Japan’s pledge to make every effort to bring back Japanese nationals abducted by the neighboring nation decades ago.
In her first meeting with the group of the abductees’ families since she became Japan’s first female prime minister on Tuesday, Takaichi, widely seen as a hard-liner on East Asian neighbors including Pyongyang, said she is “prepared” for a summit with Kim.
“Exercising leadership in my own way, I will find a breakthrough at all costs,” the 64-year-old leader said during the meeting at her office, vowing that she will “never miss any opportunity to realize the early return” of the abductees.
Takaichi is known for sharing a conservative political stance and hawkish views on diplomacy and security with the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Takuya Yokota, whose older sister Megumi was abducted, sought for the “immediate and collective return of all the abductees while the generation of their parents is alive,” saying they do not want the North to return the abductees either “gradually” or “partially.”
If this is not realized, Yokota, who heads the family group, added that they will “protest against the government and seek
stronger specific sanctions on North Korea.”
Japan’s government officially lists 17 people as abducted in the 1970s and 1980s by North Korea and suspects Pyongyang’s involvement in many other disappearances.
Five out of them were repatriated in October 2002 following landmark talks between the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang the previous month, but no major progress has been reported since.
Abe accompanied Koizumi to the summit as a deputy chief Cabinet secretary and asked him to take a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang, which helped in drawing an apology from Kim Jong Il over the abductions.
North Korea maintains that the abduction issue has been resolved.
Among the other attendees were Sakie Yokota, the 89-year-old mother of Megumi, and Hitomi Soga, who was among the five abductees who returned to Japan while her mother Miyoshi has not been able to return from North Korea.
At a press conference after their meeting, Yokota said she hopes Takaichi, whom she described as a “firm” leader, will move toward solving the issue.
Calling the abduction issue a “top priority,” Takaichi’s government has been arranging a meeting for the family members with U.S. President Donald Trump during his planned three-day visit to Japan from Monday, according to Japanese officials.
Abe, to whom Takaichi was a close aide, had once pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang but later rescinded his position and began calling for a Japan-North Korea summit after Trump held talks with Kim in 2018.
AloJapan.com