Abe-Kim meeting on ice until Japan acknowledges colonial past, says prominent North Korean
Unofficial spokesman Kim Myong-chol says North Koreans in Japan are treated ‘like second-class citizens’ and subjected to ‘discrimination and abuse’
North Korea is intensifying its criticism of Japan, dashing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hopes that he might be able to convince Kim Jong-un to meet him.
Attacks in Pyongyang’s state media recently include accusations Tokyo is plotting to develop nuclear weapons and planning to “stamp out” the North Korean community in Japan.
Abe on Monday announced that he would be keen to meet Kim to discuss issues of mutual concern, including North Korea’s nuclear programme and Japanese nationals who were in the past abducted by the government’s agents, to “build new Japan-North Korea relations”.
Abe’s apparent optimism came after Foreign Minister Taro Kono had a brief conversation with Ri Yong-ho, his North Korean counterpart at the Asean meeting in Singapore over the weekend and the Yomiuri newspaper even suggested that Abe could meet Kim on the sidelines of the three-day Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok in September.
On the same day as Abe was reiterating that he would “not miss any chance” to meet Kim, however, the Korea Central News Agency fired off its latest broadside at Tokyo, accusing Japan of “playing cunning tricks” and “behaving imprudently”. The editorial accused Japan of trying to “stoke the atmosphere of hostility” to the North, adding that Tokyo needs to “honestly reflect on its bloody past crimes of aggression”, issue an apology and pay reparations before talks are possible.