SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister said on Tuesday (Mar 26) Pyongyang would reject “any contact or negotiations” with Japan, just a day after she said Tokyo’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had requested a summit with her brother.
Relations between the two countries are historically strained, including by a long-running kidnapping dispute and North Korea’s banned weapons programmes, but Kishida has recently expressed a desire to improve ties, which Pyongyang has hinted it is not opposed to.
Last year, Kishida said he was willing to meet Kim “without any conditions”, saying Tokyo was willing to resolve all issues, including the abduction by North Korean agents of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, which remains an emotive issue in Japan.
Kim Yo Jong – who is one of the regime’s key spokespeople – said on Monday that Kishida had requested a summit with Pyongyang’s leader, adding a meeting was unlikely without a policy shift by Tokyo.
But on Tuesday, she said Pyongyang would reject any contact with Japan, citing Tokyo’s lack of “courage” for “new” North Korea-Japan relations, including over its stance on the abduction issue and North Korea’s military programmes.
North Korea “has clearly understood once again the attitude of Japan and, accordingly, the DPRK side will pay no attention to and reject any contact and negotiations with the Japanese side,” Kim Yo Jong said, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“The DPRK-Japan summit is not a matter of concern to the DPRK,” she added, referring to the North by its official name.
Kishida said on Tuesday that he was aware of media reports on Kim Yo Jong’s comments, but would “refrain from commenting on each of these remarks”.
“Japan will continue to make efforts to resolve the various issues with North Korea in accordance with our existing policy,” he said.
Source: CNA
