President Donald Trump met families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, pledging to help solve an emotive decades-old issue that has been a major policy concern of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government.
After a meeting focused on trade and security in Tokyo on Monday, Trump and Abe met relatives of those taken captive, with Trump saying the two men were "working together to bring your relatives home." In recent weeks, Abe has floated the idea of a summit with Kim Jong Un, saying he is ready to meet the North Korean leader without preconditions. The idea has been endorsed by the U.S., which is trying to revive its sputtering nuclear talks with Kim.
Abe had asked Trump to discuss the fate of 12 Japanese citizens abducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s with Kim during their historic summits in February and last June. Japan wants the issue to be given the same weight as demands over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs in Trump's negotiations with Kim.
"There isn't a meeting that we have where he doesn't bring up the abductees," Trump said of Abe after the two leaders held talks Monday at a state guesthouse in Tokyo. Trump previously met the family members during a visit to Japan in 2017.
"President Trump has taken the feelings of the abductee families into account in his foreign policy," Abe said.
The abductee issue has been at the forefront of Japanese diplomacy for years and at times caused it to be isolated in international dealings to end North Korea's atomic ambitions. Tokyo didn't participate in implementing a disarmament-for-aid deal reached with North Korea during six-country talks more than a decade ago as the discussions hadn't reached a resolution on the abductees.
Tokyo officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korea, five of whom returned home in 2002. As of April 2017, more than 12 million people had signed petitions from the families urging Abe to continue efforts to bring the rest home.
But North Korea considers the issue settled and has blasted Japan for repeatedly raising it. Kim's regime claims that eight of the abductees have died and the other four were never in its country. North Korean state media blasted Japan over the weekend for what it called a "smear campaign."
"The Japanese reactionaries' racket for 'solution to the abduction issue' is all about evading historical responsibility for their unprecedented bloody crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists in the past and justifying their hostile policy toward the DPRK," a commentary on the official Korean Central News Agency said, referring to North Korea.
