For the families of Japanese residents abducted by North Korean brokers a long time in the past, this week is maybe the most effective shot they’ve had in years of substantive progress.
Not solely does Japan have a new prime minister, however US President Donald Trump is in their a part of the world, with unfinished enterprise in relation to the return of their loved ones.
Japan says at least 17 of its citizens were snatched by North Korean brokers in the late Seventies and Nineteen Eighties – alongside tons of of unexplained circumstances. Five residents were returned in 2002; some families are nonetheless ready.
Pyongyang disputes the entire quantity taken and says some died in site visitors and drowning accidents, in addition to suicide, and it considers the matter over.
Families at the moment are hoping that new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will press the problem throughout her conferences with Trump – and that Trump will take it up with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ought to the 2 come nose to nose throughout this Asian tour.
No assembly has been scheduled, however South Korea’s unification ministry stoked hypothesis final week, saying North Koreans had been “spotted cleaning, pulling grass, arranging flower beds, pruning and taking photos of the North Korean facilities” at Panmunjom, the peace village contained in the demilitarized zone (the DMZ), that separates the 2 Koreas.
Trump, in the meantime, has repeatedly raised the prospect of an impromptu go to to the DMZ, most not too long ago on Monday as he flew to Japan and advised reporters on board Air Force One he was open to extending his Asia journey, which ends in South Korea, for a assembly with Kim.
“I’d love to meet with him if he’d like to meet,” Trump mentioned. “I got along great with Kim Jong Un, I liked him, he liked me, if he wants to meet, I’ll be in South Korea.”
Trump and Kim final met there in 2019, shaking fingers throughout the border in a historic second hurriedly organized when Trump posted a speculative invitation on social media.
It was the primary time a sitting US President had set foot on North Korean soil.
North Korea, which continuously condemns the US in its every day state media missives, actually hasn’t dominated out a assembly with Trump. Kim mentioned in a speech final month that he had “good memories of President Trump,” in line with state media.
Trump has beforehand embraced the reason for those that misplaced their loved ones to North Korea.
“President Trump is well aware of this issue, having met the families of these individuals twice during his first term. He also has frequently expressed his willingness to meet with Kim Jong Un,” a senior administration official advised NCS.
During his first time period, Trump met the families of Japanese abductees twice – first in 2017, then in 2019, when he stood beside then-leader Shinzo Abe, and said: “You have a great Prime Minister. He loves this country. He loves you. And we will be working together to bring your relatives – your daughters, your sons, your mothers – home.”
During the identical assembly, Abe mentioned: “I am convinced that President Trump has been making every effort to realize a resolution of the abductions issue.”
When Abe left workplace in 2020, (he was later assassinated in 2022), the position handed to 3 extra prime ministers, with no actual indicators of progress.
In March of this 12 months, then-Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba took out an advertorial in the Washington Post to tell Americans of the scenario and attraction for worldwide assist.
In the commercial, Sakie Yokota, who at 89-years-old is the final surviving guardian of an abductee, made a direct attraction to Trump, with a dose of flattery in the hope that the US leader doesn’t abandon them.
“I am greatly counting on the Trump administration because of his strength,” she mentioned. “I fervently hope that President Trump will make a significant push for the abductees’ return home.”
The abductions seem to have been a part of North Korea’s espionage program, with a 2014 UN report discovering the abductees “were used to teach the Japanese language, accent and culture to (North Korean) spies in training; to enable the study of Japanese identification documents in order to better falsify them; and allow (North Korean) agents to pass themselves off as being Japanese, using the identity of the abducted person.”
Yokota’s daughter Megumi is maybe one of the well-known of Japan’s abductees. Then 13, Megumi vanished in 1977 on her method dwelling from college in the coastal metropolis of Niigata.
Photos later emerged exhibiting her in North Korea, the place she was identified to have married and given start to a daughter. In 2014, Sakie and her husband Shigeru met that child, Kim Eun-gyong, then 26, throughout a assembly in Mongolia organized by Japanese and North Korean officers. North Korean officers had advised them that Megumi died in 1994 from suicide, a declare repeated by her daughter.
But the household refuses to consider she is gone. Shigeru died in 2020, leaving his spouse to proceed the search. Now Sakie hopes Takaichi, as Japan’s first feminine prime minister, will carry new vitality to their quest for solutions.
“She is the first female prime minister … I feel that her feelings as a mother may lead her to tackle this issue seriously from a different angle,” Sakie mentioned throughout a information convention final week.
Hajime Matsumoto, the older brother of Kyoko Matsumoto, who disappeared in 1977 as she was leaving her dwelling to attend a knitting class, mentioned he was additionally hopeful of progress underneath Takaichi.
“Until now, only men have become Prime Minister, and many of them say ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ but then don’t,” mentioned Hajime. “This time, the prime minister is a woman, so I believe she will be persistent and patient, and will probably keep striving until she can meet with the person she needs to meet.” According to the Japanese authorities, North Korea denies that Hajime’s sister Kyoko entered its territory – Japan believes otherwise.
Takaichi, an Abe protégé who shares his conservative, hawkish views, met the families final week and says she’s ready to fulfill Kim to debate the problem.
“I myself will exercise leadership in my own way and strive to break through no matter what,” she mentioned.
But the families of the abductees know that Takaichi is just one a part of the puzzle.
They mentioned final week they’d like to fulfill Trump once more, to press him to make use of the abductees as bargaining chip in any negotiations with the North Korean leader.
“If it is realized, it will be our first meeting with President Trump in six years,” mentioned Megumi’s brother Takuya Yokota.
“We hope to remind him to convey to Chairman Kim Jong Un in the case of a US-North Korea summit, that things cannot move forward unless the abduction issue is resolved,” mentioned Yokota, who can also be head of the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea.
Kenichi Ichikawa, the older brother of Shuichi Ichikawa, who disappeared together with his accomplice on a seaside in 1978, mentioned finally, just one man can provide them what they need.
“The only one who can return the victims, the family members, is Kim Jong Un.”
NCS’s Riku Inoue, Junko Ogura, Gawon Bae and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.