Still at Odds: The Japanese Abduction Issue and North Korea’s Circumvention

Abstract

During the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea, or as it is known officially, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), abducted a number of Japanese citizens. Especially after the late Kim Jong Il admitted to former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002 that agents from the DPRK had kidnapped some Japanese nationals during the Cold War, the abduction issue, which remains unresolved, became highly politicized in Japan. Pyongyang, however, has continued to maintain for some time now that the abduction issue was settled several years ago, while also insisting that Japan must make amends to the DPRK for its past colonization of the Korean Peninsula. For its part, Tokyo has remained adamant about the need to resolve the abduction issue, repeatedly stressing that it is one of the few major problems preventing the normalization of Japan-North Korea relations. Largely because of the strong security relationship between the United States and Japan, which for the past several years has had to contend with the North Korean missile and nuclear weapons issues, this paper also examines Washington's changing position on the abduction issue.