{"id":1937,"date":"2018-09-28T00:02:20","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T00:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=1937"},"modified":"2018-09-28T00:27:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T00:27:16","slug":"japans-abe-open-to-meeting-north-korean-leader-kim-jong-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2018\/09\/28\/japans-abe-open-to-meeting-north-korean-leader-kim-jong-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s Abe open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abe said he is willing to meet Kim to resolve the long-standing issue of kidnapped Japanese citizens in North Korea.<\/em><\/p>\n

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a longtime hardliner on\u00a0North Korea<\/a>, said he was willing to meet\u00a0Kim Jong-un<\/a>\u00a0at a speech at the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n

Abe<\/a>, who one year ago warned at the\u00a0United Nations<\/a>that the window for diplomacy with North Korea was closing, took a more open but still cautious tone on Tuesday in his latest address to the world body.<\/p>\n

But he said that any summit would be devoted to resolving a decades-old row over North Korea’s abductions of Japanese civilians – a deeply emotive issue for much of the Japanese public on which Abe built his political career.<\/p>\n

“In order to resolve the abduction issue, I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong-un,”\u00a0Abe<\/a>\u00a0said in his UN address.<\/p>\n

“But if we are to have one, then I am determined that it must contribute to the resolution of the abduction issue.” Abe added.<\/p>\n

He stressed that no summit was yet in the works – and appealed to Kim to show his own readiness.<\/p>\n

“North Korea is now at a crossroads at which it will either seize or fail to seize the historic opportunity it was afforded,” Abe said.<\/p>\n

North Korea kidnapped scores of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train the regime’s spies in Japanese language and culture.<\/p>\n

Japan’s then-prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, travelled to Pyongyang in 2002 and 2004 to seek a new relationship with the current leader’s father Kim Jong-il and was told by North Korea that remaining abduction victims were dead – a stance adamantly rejected by Japanese family members and campaigners.<\/p>\n

Speculation has been rising that Abe could meet Kim, who reportedly told Trump during their summit in June in Singapore that he was willing to talk to regional rival Japan.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0South Korea’s<\/a>\u00a0dovish President\u00a0Moon Jae-in<\/a>\u00a0also courting Kim, fears have risen in\u00a0Japan<\/a>\u00a0that it could be shut out of any ultimate resolution on North Korea if it refuses dialogue.<\/p>\n

LINK TO ARTICLE:\u00a0https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/09\/japan-abe-open-meeting-north-korean-leader-kim-jong-180926100540855.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abe said he is willing to meet Kim to resolve the long-standing issue of kidnapped Japanese citizens in North Korea. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a longtime hardliner on\u00a0North Korea, said he was willing to meet\u00a0Kim Jong-un\u00a0at a speech at the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1944,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions\/1944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}