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2 Japan in a bind over North
Korea By Hisane Masaki
TOKYO - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may find
himself in a box of his own construction over how
to deal with the abduction of Japanese citizens by
North Korea and his own comments regarding
Imperial Japan's recruiting (or coercion) of women
to serve as prostitutes for soldiers during World
War II, an issue that particularly animates South
Korea.
As Japan and North Korea are to
kick off two days of working-level talks in Hanoi
on Wednesday aimed at normalizing diplomatic
relations, Abe may face an increasingly deep
dilemma stemming
from
his choosing to make Tokyo's top-priority goal in
dealing with Pyongyang resolving the issue of the
reclusive Stalinist state's past abductions of
Japanese citizens rather than denuclearization.
Despite recent significant progress on the
nuclear standoff, Abe, a staunch anti-Pyongyang
hardliner, has vowed to keep up pressure on North
Korea over the abduction issue. Japan has also
refused to join the other participants in the
six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear-weapons
program - the United States, China, Russia and
South Korea - in offering energy aid to the
country.
However, as the US, Japan's most
important ally, has made a major shift in policy
toward North Korea from confrontation to dialogue
recently, there are some concerns here that Japan
might find itself left out in the cold. China,
Russia and South Korea have all consistently
advocated a conciliatory approach to North Korea
since the talks started in 2003.
To be
sure, Washington has repeatedly ruled out the
possibility of Japan's isolation and has given
assurances that it will continue to coordinate its
North Korea policy closely with Tokyo. But some
Japanese remain unconvinced and even feel as if
their nation has had the ladder suddenly taken out
from under it.
If Pyongyang actually makes
significant progress toward denuclearization,
pressure may mount further at the six-party talks
and elsewhere for Japan to ditch its policy of
carrying a stick without offering any carrots,
even without any progress on the abduction issue.
But doing so would be politically risky for Abe.
His harsh stance on the abduction issue
earned him a high degree of public popularity in
Japan, enabling him to take the helm of the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and to succeed
Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister last
September.
To be sure, the public support
for Abe's cabinet has been precipitously
plummeting recently because of scandals involving
some cabinet members, casting a dark cloud over
his political fortunes ahead of the crucial House
of Councilors election in the summer. But most
Japanese still support Abe's hardline stance
toward North Korea over the abduction issue. Many
have found Pyongyang's actions unforgivable,
lighting a nationalist fuse here.
According to a recent opinion poll
conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun national daily,
the disapproval rate for the Abe cabinet rose 5
percentage points to 41%, while support dropped to
36% from the previous poll in January. It is the
first time that the non-support rate has been
larger than the approval rate since Abe formed his
cabinet last September.
Meanwhile, another
recent opinion poll, conducted by the Yomiuri
Shimbun national daily, showed that 81% of those
polled support the Abe government's policy of not
providing any economic and energy aid to North
Korea until progress is made on the abduction
issue.
Tokyo-Pyongyang talks "North Korea must address our concerns with
sincerity on the abduction issue," Abe has said,
"Japan will be the one to decide whether these
bilateral talks were successful and brought
progress." But it remains unclear what Japan would
consider "progress".
Abe's predecessor
made two whirlwind trips to Pyongyang, first in
September 2002 and again in May 2004. During his
first summit with Koizumi, North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il admitted that agents of his country had
abducted some Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to
train communist spies.
Pyongyang continues
to insist that of the 13 Japanese it abducted,
eight later died. But it has failed to provide
convincing proof of the deaths. Japan suspects
that not only some of the eight but many other
Japanese kidnap victims may still be alive. The
other five abductees were allowed to return to
Japan shortly after the first Koizumi-Kim summit.
Japan now formally recognizes 17 Japanese
nationals, including the five returnees, as having
been abducted by North Korea.
Abe recently
met with the five Japanese kidnap victims who were
repatriated and vowed to press North Korea in the
bilateral normalization talks over the abduction
issue. The Japanese government has been demanding
concrete information on the abductees, the
repatriation of any surviving abductees, and the
handover of culprits responsible for the acts. But
Pyongyang has insisted that the abduction issue
has already been settled. In the Hanoi talks,
Japan is expected to ask North Korea to change its
stance and reinvestigate the issue.
Japan
will be represented by Koichi Haraguchi, the
Japanese ambassador in charge of bilateral
normalization negotiations, and North Korea by
Haraguchi's counterpart, Song Il-ho. The abduction
issue probably cannot be resolved in one meeting
and further working-level talks will likely
follow, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki
has said.
There is expectation within the
Japanese government that North Korea will accept
requests to open the reinvestigation and provide
information about the abductees, by setting a
certain time limit.
Shiozaki, Abe's top
spokesman, has said, however, that Japan will not
regard a mere promise to reinvestigate and provide
information as progress. Japan is deeply
distrustful of North Korea, particularly because,
Japanese officials say, most of the data and
explanations previously offered by Pyongyang were
false. Among such false data and explanations,
they say, is the case of the ashes submitted by
Pyongyang as those of Megumi Yokota, one of the
abduction victims, but found not to be hers
through DNA analysis in Japan in 2004.
If
North Korea does not change its stance that the
abduction issue has already been settled and does
not even respond to the
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