No progress made over abduction issue 5 years after agreement

May 30, 2019

Tokyo--No progress has been made on resolving the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, five years after Pyongyang agreed to reopen an investigation into their whereabouts.

"The Stockholm Agreement is still in place," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a parliamentary meeting on Wednesday, referring to the North Korean agreement made five years ago.

At a meeting in the Swedish capital in May 2014, Japan agreed to partially lift its unilateral sanctions against North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang's reinvestigation on the abductees.

In February 2016, however, North Korea declared the reinvestigation cancelled after Tokyo criticized Pyongyang's nuclear test and imposed unilateral sanctions against it. North Korea has yet to resume the reinvestigation despite Japan's request.

Suga said that the Stockholm Agreement "has opened the firmly locked door of negotiations and made North Korea exhibit its intention to resolve the (abduction) issue."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aims to urge North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to fulfill the agreement if they meet. Abe has expressed a willingness to meet Kim without any conditions to resolve the abduction issue.

But North Korea has shown no sign of softening its stance. On Monday, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party of Korea, commented that the abduction issue is a nonsensical sophistry and malicious fabrication.

At a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in Tokyo Monday, Abe said that no prospect for holding a Japan-North Korea summit is in sight. Tokyo is planning to contact Pyongyang using such opportunities as an international conference to be held in Mongolia on June 5-6.

"We're hoping to find a path" to resolve the abduction issue, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said on radio on Wednesday. Jiji Press