Japan hopes a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held Sunday will reinvigorate stalled denuclearization talks and help resolve the issue of Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese citizens.

After speaking by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters he welcomed the meeting, saying it was "a big turning point for U.S.-North Korea talks to resume."

"We hope that it will add momentum to efforts toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Kono said. He and Pompeo agreed to coordinate their countries' approaches to North Korea.

Trump and Kim held talks in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas and agreed to start denuclearization talks within weeks following the breakdown of their February summit.

"The meeting could serve as an opportunity for North Korea to come out of its shell," a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

Tokyo is closely monitoring whether the two countries will move forward negotiations on the denuclearization of North Korea and improve their ties, which could help the U.S. government set up a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kim, as hoped for by the Japanese leader.

Abe has so far failed to deliver on his promise to resolve the long-standing abduction issue. On Sunday, the prime minister described the situation as regrettable.

"I'm convinced that, at the end of the day, I myself need to meet with Chairman Kim Jong Un to resolve it," Abe said during an online debate with the leaders of opposition parties after the U.S.-North Korea meeting.

Abe is aiming to hold face-to-face talks with the North Korean leader to resolve the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s, a major sticking point hampering Tokyo's relations with Pyongyang.

Abe had said he would not meet with Kim unless an outcome was guaranteed for the settlement of the abduction issue, but he recently changed his position, saying he would meet the North Korean leader "without conditions" to resolve outstanding bilateral issues. </s> Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reportedly considering holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, despite earlier reservations about dialog with Pyongyang.

 Japanese local media cited an unnamed government source as saying on Wednesday that Tokyo was considering seeking a summit between Abe and Kim.

 The development came almost a week after US President Donald Trump announced he had accepted an invitation by Pyongyang to sit down with Kim without any preconditions. One of the South Korean official who had earlier met with Kim and who had delivered the invitation to Trump in Washington also met with Abe in Tokyo.

 Tokyo is said to be considering using a future meeting to discuss the fate of citizens that it alleges were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the local media.

 Abe has previously told Seoul that Japan wanted any demilitarization talks with Pyongyang to address the issue of the alleged abductions.

 “A resolution of the abduction, nuclear, and missile issues is Japan’s core policy,” the prime minister said earlier. “North Korea must match its words with actions.”

 Japan seemed to have early reservations about talks with North Korea. Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Abe said Tokyo would continue “utmost pressure” on Pyongyang to bring about denuclearization.

 This is while China and Russia both welcomed the potential meeting between Trump and Kim. Analysts attributed Tokyo’s cold response to fears that if Pyongyang “sits down with Washington, it will have absolutely no interest whatsoever in sitting down with Japan.—Agencies </s> Japan's top government spokesman left the door open on Wednesday to a possible summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss the matter of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents decades ago.

TOKYO: Japan's top government spokesman left the door open on Wednesday to a possible summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss the matter of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents decades ago.

Abe, who has made the abductees issue a keystone of his political career, will meet U.S. President Donald Trump next month in Washington ahead of a proposed summit between the U.S. leader and Pyongyang's Kim, which would follow a planned April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Worries have surfaced in Tokyo that Japan's interests, including the abductees' fate, may be sidelined by recent moves to resolve the crisis over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

"It is important to harmonise policies closely among Japan, the United States and South Korea ahead of the North-South summit and the U.S-North Korea summit," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference.

"After that, while liaising closing among the three countries, we will address how to comprehensively resolve the nuclear, missile and abduction issues. Amid that, we want to consider what would be most effective and address the issues from that perspective," Suga added.

On Tuesday, a government source said the administration was considering seeking an Abe-Kim meeting. He declined to be identified because he's not authorised to speak to media.

Abe, 63, has said he would not rest until all 13 of the people North Korea admitted to kidnapping have returned and divulges information about the others that Japan suspects were taken to train as North Korean spies.

But progress has largely stalled since 2002, when five of the 13 returned home. Pyongyang said the other eight were dead.

A ruling coalition lawmaker said that it was too early to plan for two-way talks with Pyongyang on the kidnappings.

"The order is a North-South summit, followed by a U.S.-North Korea summit. We have to see how they go first,” said the lawmaker, who is well-versed in diplomatic affairs.

Speculation about a Abe-Kim summit emerges periodically, especially when his ratings are soggy.

Then-premier Junichiro Koizumi, got a popularity boost after his 2002 visit to Pyongyang and in 2004 when he brought back five children of abductees.

Abe is facing perhaps the worst crisis since taking office as doubts swirl over a suspected cronyism scandal centred on the discounted sale of state-owned land to a school with ties to his wife. He has denied wrongdoing either by himself or his spouse. </s> Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has welcomed the third summit of US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and expressed hope for continuation of such a dialogue

TOKYO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2019) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has welcomed the third summit of US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and expressed hope for continuation of such a dialogue.

"Japan supports the US-North Korean process. I hope that the current negotiations at the highest level will continue," Abe said as quoted by Kyodo news Agency on Monday.

On Saturday, Trump met with Kim in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas and held an hour-long meeting in private inside the Freedom House on the South Korean side of the zone.

Trump even briefly stepped over the demarcation line into North Korean soil, becoming the first US president to do so.

Following the meeting, Abe reiterated his intention to have talks with Kim over North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, a pressing issue in relation between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

Kim and Trump first met in Singapore in June 2018, when the two leaders expressed commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The second round of talks, held in February in Vietnam, however, ended abruptly without any agreement. </s> The following content is sourced from external partners. We cannot guarantee that it is suitable for the visually or hearing impaired.

This content was published on October 2, 2018 11:12 PM

FILE PHOTO - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news conference at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Singapore August 4, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to North Korea at the weekend for denuclearization talks with the country's leader Kim Jong Un, the State Department said on Tuesday, calling this "forward progress," despite negative signals from Pyongyang.

Pompeo will also travel to Japan, South Korea and China from Oct. 6-8, and will be in North Korea on Sunday local time, or Saturday in U.S. Eastern Time.

"I think it shows forward progress and momentum that the secretary is making his fourth trip back in less than a year," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing, referring to the Pyongyang stop.

"Of course, we have quite a ways to go but we look forward to the next steps in this conversation."

Pompeo's visit comes ahead of a planned second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump. The invitation to return to Pyongyang was made during a meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on the sidelines of their United Nations General Assembly last week.

Nauert said the stops in Japan, South Korea and China were intended to brief counterparts on the Pyongyang talks. She said he would meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Tokyo and President Moon Jae-in and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha in Seoul, while in Beijing he would meet counterparts to discuss "bilateral, regional and global issues."

At an unprecedented June meeting with Trump, Kim pledged to work towards denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but his actions have fallen short of Washington's demands for a complete inventory of its nuclear weapons and irreversible steps to give up an arsenal that potentially threatens the United States.

Trump has nevertheless hailed progress and on Saturday took his enthusiasm for his detente with Kim to new heights by declaring at a rally with supporters that "we fell in love" after exchanging letters.

Earlier that day, North Korea's Ri struck a different tone, telling the United Nations that continued U.S. sanctions were deepening Pyongyang's mistrust in the United States and there was no way the country would disarm unilaterally under such circumstances.

Ri said North Korea had taken "significant goodwill measures," such as stopping nuclear and missiles tests and dismantling a nuclear test site, but there had been no corresponding response from Washington.

North Korea has been seeking a formal end to the 1950-53 Korea War, but the United States has said Pyongyang must give up its nuclear weapons first. Washington has also resisted calls to relax tough international sanctions.

Pompeo's last trip to North Korea did not go well. He left Pyongyang in July hailing progress, only for North Korea to denounce him for making "gangster-like demands."

In a commentary on Tuesday, North Korea's official KCNA news agency said declaring the end of the 1950-53 Korean War could "never be a bargaining chip" for denuclearization and said experts calling for North Korea to declare details of its arms programs were "spouting ... rubbish."

Pompeo had planned to travel to North Korea in August but Trump cancelled the trip at the last moment and publicly acknowledged for the first time that his efforts to get Pyongyang to denuclearize had stalled.

Nauert said she did not agree that talks had stalled and when asked if Trump's comments on Saturday had been helpful, replied: "I think if our leaders have relatively friendly relations, that that's a good thing. That that can only help us to achieve our final goal."

She said that in the meantime, sanctions would remain in place.

"We are not easing the pressure in that regard at all," she said, while responding when asked if Washington was considering any kind of peace declaration: "We are not. Nothing has changed with regard to our policy."

Pompeo's trip to China comes at a time of deteriorating relations and tit-for-tat tariffs sparked by Trump's accusations of unfair Chinese trade practices. Last week, Trump accused China of seeking to meddle in the Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections, saying it did not want his Republican Party to do well.

Reuters reported on Sunday that China had cancelled a security meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis planned for October.

Asked if Pompeo would attend the diplomatic side of the so-called Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, Nauert said: "The trip is, as far as I understand, to have conversations about North Korea and other issues of bilateral concern. I don't have anything beyond that right now."

"In any relationship you have your high points, you have your medium points and with some countries you have your low points," she said.

"I am not going to characterize our relationship with China in any one of those three ways, but relationships can ebb and flow over time, so we certainly have a lot to talk about with the government of China." </s> Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Sunday sought cooperation from Mongolia over efforts to settle the issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, as Ulaanbaatar maintains friendly ties with Pyongyang.

During talks between Kono and his Mongolian counterpart, Damdin Tsogtbaatar, in the Mongolian capital, the two agreed on the importance of fully implementing U.N. sanctions against North Korea to push the country toward denuclearization, according to Japanese officials.

Kono said the two countries are strategic partners sharing universal values and that he hopes to further develop their relationship. Tsogtbaatar agreed to deepen ties.

Tokyo, which has no diplomatic ties with North Korea, has often looked to Mongolia to act as a mediator. It is the first time in about nine years that a Japanese foreign minister has visited the country.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently stepped up efforts to reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying he is willing to hold a meeting “without preconditions” — a shift from his previous position that any summit should yield progress on the abduction issue.

North Korea has so far reacted coldly, with its state-run media quoting a spokesperson for the country’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee earlier in the month as calling the offer “brazen.”

Japan officially lists 17 people as victims of abduction, five of whom were repatriated in 2002, and suspects the North’s involvement in many other disappearances.

Kono will return to Japan on Monday. </s> The Japanese government plans to explore the possibility of a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it considers adopting a new way of dealing with the North, government sources said Tuesday.

The decision came after Abe and other officials were briefed by Suh Hoon, one of the South Korean envoys who spoke with Kim in breakthrough talks in Pyongyang last week.

While the Abe administration has long advocated a cautious stance in holding dialogue with North Korea, it now anticipates there is a fresh chance to make progress toward resolving the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, the sources said.

"If we're to resolve the abduction issue, direct dialogue with the top -- Mr Kim Jong Un -- is essential," a source at Abe's office said.

A high-ranking government official also expressed expectations for a Tokyo-Pyongyang summit. "The issues of (North Korea's) nuclear and missile will be discussed at a summit between the United States and North Korea. Japan and North Korea can discuss (at a summit) the abduction issue and the normalization of bilateral ties," the official told reporters.

The last time Japanese and North Korean leaders met was in 2004, when then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met Kim's father Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

South Korean President Moon Jae In and U.S. President Donald Trump have already decided to hold summit meetings with Kim in the coming months as a result of the Pyongyang talks.

Abe plans to visit the United States early next month and meet Trump to coordinate their North Korea policies ahead of what will be the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

"In the event that we do hold (a summit with North Korea), we will need to watch the actions of both the United States and South Korea, and look for an effective time," a government source said.

"Everything starts from here on," a senior Foreign Ministry official told reporters.

The Foreign Ministry already has its eyes on the resumption of dialogue with North Korea, having decided on a plan to spread the message that Japan is aiming to normalize ties with the North, not just demand an end to its nuclear and missile development and a resolution to the abduction issue.

Asked whether the government will aim for a summit with North Korea, its top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference on Tuesday that Japan will "consider our forthcoming actions from the perspective of what is most effective."

The Abe administration has described North Korea as having taken advantage of previous frameworks for dialogue in order to buy time to further develop its weapons.

But the South Korean president's office said in a statement Tuesday that Abe told Suh, director of the country's National Intelligence Service, he does not think North Korea will merely use the upcoming summits for that purpose.

Japan officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korean agents and suspects North Korea's involvement in other disappearances of Japanese nationals.

Of the 17, five were repatriated in 2002 after Koizumi's first talks with Kim in North Korea. Pyongyang claims eight of the abductees have died and the other four never entered the country. </s> Japan is considering a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, local media reported, as diplomatic efforts to engage Pyongyang ramp up.

The reports come after the surprise announcement that US President Donald Trump plans his own talks with the North Korean leader, part of fast-paced diplomatic developments following an Olympic detente.

However, there have been no public proposals of talks by either Pyongyang or Tokyo.

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported a potential Abe-Kim summit late Tuesday, citing unnamed government sources who said the talks could be part of a new approach by Tokyo to dealing with the North.

Hours later, Jiji Press reported a similar story, saying Tokyo fears being left behind in dealing with the North if talks proceed between the isolated nation and South Korea and Washington without Japan's involvement.

Contacted by AFP, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said she could not confirm any concrete plans for a summit.

But she added "we will be studying our policies from the viewpoint of what is most effective" to resolve the issues of North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes as well as the abduction of Japanese citizens by Pyongyang.

Earlier this week, South Korean envoy Suh Hoon visited Tokyo to brief Japan's leadership on the fast-moving diplomatic process that saw an announcement last week of a historic US-North Korea summit to discuss Pyongyang's denuclearisation.

Suh, the chief of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, on Tuesday met with Abe but it was unclear if he brought a message from the North Korean leader to propose a summit with Japan.

Media reports and experts say Tokyo fears it may be left out of developments around North Korea, and worries that the issue of abducted Japanese citizens is being sidelined.

But the possibility of an Abe-Kim summit also comes as the Japanese premier faces a growing scandal at home over the sale of government land to one of his supporters, and an apparent cover-up of the deal by the finance ministry.

Abe rose to political prominence on his calls for a tough line on North Korea, particularly over its abductions of Japanese citizens.

Japan, a close US ally in the region, is in the firing line of North Korean missiles and saw two fly over its territory in 2017, sparking outrage and lifting tensions to fever pitch.

The last Japanese prime minister to meet a North Korean leader was Junichiro Koizumi, who met Kim's father Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in 2004. </s> A Japanese man has recently been taken into custody in North Korea, government officials said Saturday as Tokyo tried to obtain information on the case.

According to informed sources, the man, in his 30s, was visiting the communist regime on a package tour organized by a foreign tourist agency. He was in Nampo, a port town in the western part of the country, the source said.

Japanese officials are concerned his detention could affect negotiations on the long-running abduction issue, which concerns Japanese who were kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1970s and 80s. Five were returned several years ago after talks held under the administration of Junichiro Koizumi.

“North Korea may use the man it has held as a bargaining chip for negotiations with Japan,” an official said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying to arrange a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the wake of the historic summit between North Korea and the United States, but there are no signs of progress yet.

A Foreign Ministry official declined to provide specifics on the case, such as the purpose of the man’s visit, saying only that the ministry is in the process of confirming the details.

Tokyo has reportedly called on Pyongyang to release the man through diplomatic channels, including the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, the sources said. The ministry has asked Japanese to refrain from traveling to North Korea as part of its economic sanctions on the country.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho did not respond to questions on the matter when he arrived at Beijing international airport Saturday following a trip to Singapore and Iran.

In 1999 a Japanese newspaper reporter working in North Korea was taken into custody on spy charges and detained for about two years.

Sources familiar with bilateral relations said last month that North Korea has established a team to negotiate with Japan, which itself is seeking direct talks to settle various issues. The team was apparently established sometime between April and the historic U.S.-North Korea summit on June 12, reflecting a move by Pyongyang to explore dialogue with Tokyo amid the rapidly changing geopolitical situation on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea judged earlier this year that mending ties with Japan would become a future task if it moves to improve ties with the United States, South Korea and China, the sources said.

At a plenary meeting in April of the central committee of North Korea’s ruling party, the policy of pursuing active dialogue with surrounding countries was adopted, they added.

Tokyo has long sought answers about the abduction issue. Japan officially lists 17 citizens as abduction victims and suspects the North’s involvement in many more disappearances.

But no substantial progress has been made despite exchanges via the team, the sources said, and prospects for making progress are clouded by the murky outlook of the denuclearization talks between the U.S. and North Korea.
After speaking by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Japanese Foreign Minister Tarō Kōno says "he hopes the meeting adds momentum to efforts toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula". Kōno also says that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe "wants to meet Kim Jong-un to solve the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens".