Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said he wants to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “without any conditions” and is personally overseeing efforts to hold the leaders’ first summit in 20 years in a bid to ease decades of tensions.
But North Korea has said it is not interested in a summit with Japan and would reject any talks, sending a signal that there will be no thaw in relations between the two countries.
Cho also said Pyongyang had no intention of helping with the Japanese abductee issue, according to KCNA, adding that North Korea would “respond strongly” to Japan’s interference in its sovereignty.
“I cannot understand why he insists on the issue that cannot be settled,” Cho said, according to KCNA, referring to Kishida.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens decades ago. Five of the abductees and their families later returned to Japan, saying the rest had died.
However, Tokyo believes 17 Japanese were abducted, and is still investigating what happened to those who did not return, according to Japanese media.
North Korea’s ambassador to China, Ri Ryong Nam, also said there would be no meeting at any level with Japan, KCNA said in a separate cable.
Ri made the remark in a statement, adding that an official at the Japanese embassy in Beijing suggested contacting a North Korean embassy counselor via email.
“I have once again made clear the position that no meeting at any level will take place between the DPRK and the Japanese side,” Ri said, according to KCNA.
Kim Yo-yong, leader Kim’s powerful sister, has said she would welcome talks only if Japan is ready to make a new start without being “obsessed with the past”.
Relations between the two countries are strained due to, among other things, North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens in the early 2000s, Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945, and its use of forced labor and sex slavery.
Japan and North Korea have also clashed over Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, with the North conducting a number of test launches in recent months resulting in fresh sanctions from Seoul and Washington.
SOURCE: APE-ME
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