Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Sunday sought cooperation from Mongolia over efforts to settle the issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, as Ulaanbaatar maintains friendly ties with Pyongyang.

During talks between Kono and his Mongolian counterpart, Damdin Tsogtbaatar, in the Mongolian capital, the two agreed on the importance of fully implementing U.N. sanctions against North Korea to push the country toward denuclearization, according to Japanese officials.

Kono said the two countries are strategic partners sharing universal values and that he hopes to further develop their relationship. Tsogtbaatar agreed to deepen ties.

Tokyo, which has no diplomatic ties with North Korea, has often looked to Mongolia to act as a mediator. It is the first time in about nine years that a Japanese foreign minister has visited the country.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently stepped up efforts to reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying he is willing to hold a meeting “without preconditions” — a shift from his previous position that any summit should yield progress on the abduction issue.

North Korea has so far reacted coldly, with its state-run media quoting a spokesperson for the country’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee earlier in the month as calling the offer “brazen.”

Japan officially lists 17 people as victims of abduction, five of whom were repatriated in 2002, and suspects the North’s involvement in many other disappearances.

Kono will return to Japan on Monday. </s> A Japanese man has recently been taken into custody in North Korea, government officials said Saturday as Tokyo tried to obtain information on the case.

According to informed sources, the man, in his 30s, was visiting the communist regime on a package tour organized by a foreign tourist agency. He was in Nampo, a port town in the western part of the country, the source said.

Japanese officials are concerned his detention could affect negotiations on the long-running abduction issue, which concerns Japanese who were kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1970s and 80s. Five were returned several years ago after talks held under the administration of Junichiro Koizumi.

“North Korea may use the man it has held as a bargaining chip for negotiations with Japan,” an official said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying to arrange a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the wake of the historic summit between North Korea and the United States, but there are no signs of progress yet.

A Foreign Ministry official declined to provide specifics on the case, such as the purpose of the man’s visit, saying only that the ministry is in the process of confirming the details.

Tokyo has reportedly called on Pyongyang to release the man through diplomatic channels, including the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, the sources said. The ministry has asked Japanese to refrain from traveling to North Korea as part of its economic sanctions on the country.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho did not respond to questions on the matter when he arrived at Beijing international airport Saturday following a trip to Singapore and Iran.

In 1999 a Japanese newspaper reporter working in North Korea was taken into custody on spy charges and detained for about two years.

Sources familiar with bilateral relations said last month that North Korea has established a team to negotiate with Japan, which itself is seeking direct talks to settle various issues. The team was apparently established sometime between April and the historic U.S.-North Korea summit on June 12, reflecting a move by Pyongyang to explore dialogue with Tokyo amid the rapidly changing geopolitical situation on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea judged earlier this year that mending ties with Japan would become a future task if it moves to improve ties with the United States, South Korea and China, the sources said.

At a plenary meeting in April of the central committee of North Korea’s ruling party, the policy of pursuing active dialogue with surrounding countries was adopted, they added.

Tokyo has long sought answers about the abduction issue. Japan officially lists 17 citizens as abduction victims and suspects the North’s involvement in many more disappearances.

But no substantial progress has been made despite exchanges via the team, the sources said, and prospects for making progress are clouded by the murky outlook of the denuclearization talks between the U.S. and North Korea. </s> U.S. Secretary of State nominee and CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a secret visit to North Korea over the Easter weekend and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss a planned summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. Pompeo’s trip made him the most senior U.S. official ever known to have met with Kim and provided the strongest sign yet to Trump’s willingness to become the first serving U.S. president ever to meet a North Korean leader.

Pompeo’s conversations fueled Trump’s belief that productive negotiations were possible with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but far from guaranteed, according to a U.S. senior official briefed on the trip.

The visit, a second U.S. official said, was arranged by South Korean intelligence chief Suh Hoon with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, and was intended to assess whether Kim was prepared to hold serious talks.

Pompeo, one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, returned to report that it was worth continuing to pursue the possibility of a summit, but added that no site had been selected from lists of options, and consequently no logistical arrangements had been made so far, the second official said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump said earlier on Tuesday the United States was engaged in direct talks at “extremely high levels” with North Korea to try to set up a summit between him and Kim.

He sowed some confusion by suggesting he had been speaking to Kim directly, but later clarified by saying: “Let’s leave it a little bit short of the highest level.”

Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders added: “The president said the administration has had talks at the highest levels and added that they were not with him directly.”

Asked about Pompeo, she said: “The administration does not comment on the CIA director’s travel.” Pompeo told his Senate confirmation hearing for the post of secretary of state this week he was optimistic a course could be set at a Trump-Kim summit for a diplomatic outcome with North Korea, but added that no one was under any illusion that a comprehensive deal could be reached at that meeting.

Pompeo said the aim of the summit would be “an agreement … such that the North Korean leadership will step away from its efforts to hold America at risk with nuclear weapons” and that Pyongyang should not expect rewards until it takes irreversible steps.

Pompeo’s trip made him the most senior U.S. official to visit North Korea since then-intelligence chief James Clapper in 2014.

The news came after Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe opened two days of talks at the president’s Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump said he believed there was a lot of goodwill in the diplomatic push with North Korea, but added it was possible the summit – first proposed in March and which the president said could take place in late May or early June – may not happen.

Efforts to arrange the unprecedented meeting have helped ease tensions over Pyongyang’s development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States. Kim has agreed to discuss denuclearization, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.

“I really believe there’s a lot of goodwill; a lot of good things are happening,” Trump told reporters.

“As I always say, we’ll see what happens, because ultimately it’s the end result that matters, not the fact that we’re thinking about having a meeting or having a meeting.”

Trump, who has exchanged bellicose threats with Kim in the past year, said U.S. officials were looking at five locations for a meeting. Asked if any of those were in the United States, Trump replied: “No.”

A U.S. official said sites in Southeast Asia and Europe were among those under discussion. Kim has rarely left North Korea.

Speculation has centered on a range of sites including Pyongyang, the demilitarized zone between the Koreas, Stockholm, Geneva and Mongolia.

Talks between Trump and Abe are largely focused on the prospective summit as Japan seeks a U.S. commitment that any denuclearization deal with Kim will include not just long-range missiles but those that could be aimed at Japan.

Reflecting the closeness of their ties, the Trump-Abe meetings included a walk around the carefully manicured grounds of the beachfront club and dinner on the patio with their wives. A round of golf was planned for Wednesday.

“For the North Korean issue, I’d like to underscore the importance of achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, as well as the abandonment of missile programs of North Korea,” Abe told Trump.

Abe also obtained an agreement from Trump to bring up the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, a highly emotive issue for the Japanese.

Trump stressed that he and Abe were united.

“Japan and ourselves are locked, and we are very unified on the subject of North Korea,” he said.

Trump said it was possible diplomatic efforts to arrange a Kim summit would fall short and if it did not happen, the United States and its allies would maintain pressure on Pyongyang through sanctions.

“It’s possible things won’t go well and we won’t have the meetings and we’ll just continue to go on this very strong path we have taken,” he said.

Trump also backed efforts between South Korea and the North aimed at ending a state of war that has existed between the two countries since 1953.

“People don’t realize the Korean War has not ended. It’s going on right now. And they are discussing an end to the war. Subject to a deal, they have my blessing and they do have my blessing to discuss that,” he said.

Trump and Abe could use a successful summit to give themselves a political boost at home. Trump has been hounded by controversies linked to an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, and Abe is struggling with declining popularity because of scandals over suspected cronyism.

Trump has forged close ties with Abe during his 15 months in power and the two have bonded over rounds of golf during Abe’s last visit to Florida more than a year ago and Trump’s visit to Tokyo last November.

Japan fears Trump will try to link vital security matters with touchy trade topics. Tokyo is eager to avoid being pushed into talks on a two-way free trade agreement aimed not only at market access but at currency policies, something South Korea recently accepted when it renegotiated a trade deal with the United States.

Another irritant on trade is that Japan has not been given an exemption to tariffs on steel and aluminum exports to the United States, unlike the European Union, Canada and Mexico. </s> Abe to press Trump to raise issue of abducted at Kim summit

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, unable to meet North Korea's leader himself, is heading to Washington to try to make sure President Donald Trump doesn't overlook Japan's security and other concerns at the unprecedented U.S.-North Korea summit next week.

Abe will have less than two hours to make his points to Trump at the White House on Thursday, before both go to Canada for a G-7 summit on Friday and Saturday, and the American president then flies to Singapore for his June 12 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Japan, which relied on the U.S. for its post-World War II diplomacy and security, has been absent in the recent burst of engagement with North Korea. Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have both met Kim twice, as Abe waits his turn to raise Japan's concerns directly.

"I want to make sure to be on the same page with President Trump ahead of the first ever U.S.-North Korea summit so we can push forward nuclear and missile issues, and most importantly the abduction problem, and make for a successful summit," Abe told reporters before leaving for the airport.

Abe doesn't want Trump to strike a compromise that would leave Japan exposed to shorter-range missiles that do not threaten the U.S. mainland or that relieves pressure on North Korea before it takes concrete steps toward complete denuclearization. He is expected to ask Trump once again to raise with Kim the fate of Japanese abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s.

"It wouldn't be my style to have to ask the U.S. for help on the abduction issue," said Hitoshi Tanaka, a former diplomat and head of a think tank, the Institute for International Strategy. "It's embarrassing that a state leader has to ask another leader in resolving the sovereignty of his people."

While in Washington, Abe will also likely press Trump to remove Japan from U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, as well as express his opposition to threats of sharply higher U.S. tariffs on imported automobiles. Abe said he will show at the G-7 summit his full backing for Trump on North Korea, but he will urge everyone to take leadership in promoting free and fair trade rather than escalating disputes.

Japan hopes to hold talks with North Korea after a successful Trump-Kim summit. Abe has said he is open to meeting with Kim, but only if it would lead to resolving the abduction issue. He said Japan would then normalize ties and provide economic aid as rewards for a North Korean commitment to both denuclearization and resolution of the abduction issue.

Japanese analysts agree that if Abe's turn to meet Kim comes, it would be at the very end of a long process as Trump and other regional leaders deal with North Korea's denuclearization.

"Japan eventually should develop its own diplomacy to deal with North Korea independently to resolve its problems, including the abductions," said Atsuhito Isozaki, a Keio University professor specializing in North Korea.

He said that economic aid or financial compensation for Japan's 35-year colonization of Korea could be attractive, but noted that North Korea now has other potential sources of assistance.

"Japan's economy does not stand out in northeast Asia as it did 16 years ago," he said, when Pyongyang and Tokyo last tried to negotiate a normalization of ties. Without Japan's help, North Korea has arranged a summit with the U.S. and possible economic cooperation from South Korea, he said this week at a briefing for media.

After a 2002 summit between then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea acknowledged abducting 13 Japanese and allowed five of them to visit Japan, though they then stayed, angering North Korea. Japan says at least 17 Japanese were abducted and possibly more.

Japanese officials are scrambling to get information on the Trump-Kim summit. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan will dispatch diplomats to Singapore to try to get the latest updates.

After his last meeting with Trump in April, Abe said the two leaders were in complete agreement on North Korea policy, namely to keep sanctions in place until Pyongyang takes concrete action toward verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.

Concerns have since grown in Japan that Trump may be prioritizing holding a summit rather than the goal of full denuclearization. Abe, who has played tough on the North, also worries that a growing reconciliatory mood between the two Koreas may prompt leniency toward Pyongyang.

Trump's recent statement that he doesn't want to keep using the phrase "maximum pressure" against North Korea reinforced those fears.

North Korea's state media Korea Central News Agency criticized Abe and other Japanese officials for insisting on pressuring the North. KCNA, quoting the Rodong Shimmun newspaper, said Japan worries about being "marginalized from the structure around the Korean Peninsula." </s> The Japanese government plans to explore the possibility of a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it considers adopting a new way of dealing with the North, government sources said Tuesday.

The decision came after Abe and other officials were briefed by Suh Hoon, one of the South Korean envoys who spoke with Kim in breakthrough talks in Pyongyang last week.

While the Abe administration has long advocated a cautious stance in holding dialogue with North Korea, it now anticipates there is a fresh chance to make progress toward resolving the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, the sources said.

"If we're to resolve the abduction issue, direct dialogue with the top -- Mr Kim Jong Un -- is essential," a source at Abe's office said.

A high-ranking government official also expressed expectations for a Tokyo-Pyongyang summit. "The issues of (North Korea's) nuclear and missile will be discussed at a summit between the United States and North Korea. Japan and North Korea can discuss (at a summit) the abduction issue and the normalization of bilateral ties," the official told reporters.

The last time Japanese and North Korean leaders met was in 2004, when then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met Kim's father Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

South Korean President Moon Jae In and U.S. President Donald Trump have already decided to hold summit meetings with Kim in the coming months as a result of the Pyongyang talks.

Abe plans to visit the United States early next month and meet Trump to coordinate their North Korea policies ahead of what will be the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

"In the event that we do hold (a summit with North Korea), we will need to watch the actions of both the United States and South Korea, and look for an effective time," a government source said.

"Everything starts from here on," a senior Foreign Ministry official told reporters.

The Foreign Ministry already has its eyes on the resumption of dialogue with North Korea, having decided on a plan to spread the message that Japan is aiming to normalize ties with the North, not just demand an end to its nuclear and missile development and a resolution to the abduction issue.

Asked whether the government will aim for a summit with North Korea, its top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference on Tuesday that Japan will "consider our forthcoming actions from the perspective of what is most effective."

The Abe administration has described North Korea as having taken advantage of previous frameworks for dialogue in order to buy time to further develop its weapons.

But the South Korean president's office said in a statement Tuesday that Abe told Suh, director of the country's National Intelligence Service, he does not think North Korea will merely use the upcoming summits for that purpose.

Japan officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korean agents and suspects North Korea's involvement in other disappearances of Japanese nationals.

Of the 17, five were repatriated in 2002 after Koizumi's first talks with Kim in North Korea. Pyongyang claims eight of the abductees have died and the other four never entered the country. </s> Japan hopes a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held Sunday will reinvigorate stalled denuclearization talks and help resolve the issue of Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese citizens.

After speaking by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters he welcomed the meeting, saying it was "a big turning point for U.S.-North Korea talks to resume."

"We hope that it will add momentum to efforts toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Kono said. He and Pompeo agreed to coordinate their countries' approaches to North Korea.

Trump and Kim held talks in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas and agreed to start denuclearization talks within weeks following the breakdown of their February summit.

"The meeting could serve as an opportunity for North Korea to come out of its shell," a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

Tokyo is closely monitoring whether the two countries will move forward negotiations on the denuclearization of North Korea and improve their ties, which could help the U.S. government set up a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kim, as hoped for by the Japanese leader.

Abe has so far failed to deliver on his promise to resolve the long-standing abduction issue. On Sunday, the prime minister described the situation as regrettable.

"I'm convinced that, at the end of the day, I myself need to meet with Chairman Kim Jong Un to resolve it," Abe said during an online debate with the leaders of opposition parties after the U.S.-North Korea meeting.

Abe is aiming to hold face-to-face talks with the North Korean leader to resolve the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s, a major sticking point hampering Tokyo's relations with Pyongyang.

Abe had said he would not meet with Kim unless an outcome was guaranteed for the settlement of the abduction issue, but he recently changed his position, saying he would meet the North Korean leader "without conditions" to resolve outstanding bilateral issues. </s> Japan is considering seeking a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as Tokyo struggles to stay relevant in fast-moving diplomacy with Pyongyang.

Officials in Tokyo would not confirm Wednesday the reports of a potential shift in Japan’s policy, but government spokesman Yoshihide Suga also declined to explicitly deny a summit was being explored.

“What is important is that the three countries, Japan, the US and South Korea, continue to closely coordinate policies,” he said at a regular briefing.

“We wish to make progress on our efforts to reach a comprehensive resolution of the nuclear, missile, and abduction (of Japanese citizens) … and as part of that, we will review our way forward from the perspective of the most effective approach.”

There has been no public suggestion from any side of an Abe-Kim summit.

But Japan’s Kyodo and Jiji Press agencies both reported the possibility was being studied after Tokyo found itself on the back foot with the surprise announcement last week that US President Donald Trump would meet with Kim later this year.

Japan has long maintained a hardline position on negotiations with Pyongyang, warning against “talks for the sake of talks”, and in the early days of Trump’s administration there appeared to be little daylight between Tokyo and Washington on the issue.

But the prospect of a Trump-Kim summit, as well as talks between North and South Korea, appears to have pushed Tokyo to reassess its position, analysts said.

Japan fears the current diplomatic track could leave unaddressed the North’s short-range missile capabilities, as well as the emotive issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang during the cold war.

“Japan has to hold a summit as soon as possible after the North-South summit and the US-North summit … to avoid being left out both in terms of security concerns and on the abduction issue,” Masao Okonogi, a North Korea specialist affiliated with Tokyo’s Keio University, said.

Speaking before the latest reports, Korea expert Kan Kimura, a professor at Kobe University, said that Japan had been “left behind” by the recent diplomatic activity.

“Things are moving forward without Japan,” he said.

The Japanese are “showing clear signs that they are deeply unsettled by this,” added Daniel Sneider, an Asia-Pacific specialist at Stanford University.

“The Japanese fear being isolated because they have basically positioned themselves as the most hardline of hardliners, constantly expressing scepticism about the North Korean openings to dialogue,” he added.

The last Japanese prime minister to meet a North Korean leader was Junichiro Koizumi, who met Kim’s father Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in 2004.

But Abe rose to political prominence on his calls for a tough line on North Korea, and attitudes only hardened after two missiles fired by Pyongyang flew over Japan last year.

The hostility goes both ways, with Pyongyang regularly excoriating Japan, including over its colonial rule of the Korean peninsula in the early 20th century.

“Korea is not a weak nation as it used to be in the past when it was trampled under the jackboots of the Japanese imperialists,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary Monday.

The prospect of an Abe-Kim summit also comes at a time of political turmoil for Japan’s premier, who is under fire at home over the discount sale of government land to one of his supporters, a deal that was the apparent subject of a cover-up by the finance ministry. </s> TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese man has recently been detained in North Korea, a potential diplomatic dilemma as Tokyo pushes to hold a summit with Pyongyang, local media reported on Saturday (Aug 11).

It was not immediately clear when or why the unidentified man was held but he may be charged with spying, the Asahi Shimbun reported, quoting government sources.

"Securing the man's safety is the top priority but it is possible the North Korean side might make use of the case as a bargaining chip for its negotiations with Japan," a source close the Japanese government told the paper.

Further details, such as the purpose of the man's visit to North Korea, were not immediately available.

A foreign ministry official declined to confirm the news reports "due to the nature of such a case".

"But the government is taking action and gathering information," the official told AFP.

Tokyo has advised Japanese citizens against travel to North Korea as part of its economic sanctions on the country.

North Korea has a long history of arresting foreigners on spying charges and then using them as diplomatic pawns.

In 1999, a Japanese newspaper reporter in North Korea was detained for about two years on spying charges, Kyodo News reported.

Japan has largely maintained a hard line on Pyongyang - which fired multiple test missiles towards Japanese territory - and has long pushed for movement on citizens who were abducted decades ago by North Korean agents.

But reports suggest Tokyo is considering a summit soon between Kim and Abe in the wake of South Korea and Washington's recent diplomatic detente with Pyongyang. Japanese media have floated a possible meeting on the sidelines of an international forum in Russia's Vladivostok next month.

"Ultimately, I myself will have to directly face chairman Kim Jong Un and engage in dialogue and resolve the nuclear, missile and, above all, the all-important abduction issue, and then build new Japan-North Korea relations," Abe said Monday.

During historic talks with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, Kim reportedly said he was open to a meeting with Abe. </s> Japan and South Korea are mired in a trade dispute that runs the danger of further damaging their already fraught relationship at a time when the political situation in North Asia demands closer cooperation in the face of threats from a pugnacious government in North Korea, backed by Russian and Chinese governments happy to cause mischief.

David Stilwell, a former Air Force general recently appointed assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is shuttling between the two countries in an attempt to cool the situation, with the State Department saying it is “critical to ensure strong and close relationships between and among our three countries in the face of shared regional challenges” including that posed by North Korea.

The latest episode began on July 1 when Japan imposed export restrictions on three important industrial materials used by South Korean companies to make semiconductors and display screens. South Korea has now taken the dispute to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Japan is also mulling a plan to remove South Korea from a list of countries that face minimum trade restrictions, a so-called “white list,” insisting that its planned removal of preferential trade treatment for Seoul is similar to its requirements for over 160 countries across the world and that South Korea’s listing as the only Asian country on this white list ‘was a privilege and not a right.’

The Japanese government charges that Seoul was unable to prevent hydrogen fluoride from being passed on to North Korea. Hydrogen fluoride can be used in weapons development and given Tokyo’s worries vis-à-vis Pyongyang, its concerns seem valid. Seoul has, of course, denied the accusations.

A Japanese Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry statement on the issue notes that “through careful consideration among the relevant ministries in Japan, the government of Japan cannot help but state that the Japan-ROK relationship of trust including in the field of export control and regulation has been significantly undermined.”

However, the dispute has to be seen in conjunction with many other issues, some going back for decades, that are bedeviling the ties between the neighbors. Earlier last year, for instance, a South Korean court ruled that Japanese companies should pay compensation to South Koreans who the court said were forced to work in Japanese factories when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese control between 1910 and 1945.

There are many other issues too, where the two countries do not see eye-to-eye. South Korean President Moon Jae-in favors a cautious approach which seeks to build better ties with the North. On the other hand, for Japan the crucial issue is the decades-old abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korea and without their return, the potential for normalization of ties between Japan and North Korea looks very dim.

Other issues arise from the colonial period when Japan controlled the Korean peninsula although the issues were deemed to have settled by the 1965 Treaty of Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea.

All these come against the backdrop of the US-China trade war and Japan’s own trade tensions with the US. Although Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has managed to build a close relationship with US President Donald Trump, it hasn’t prevented Trump from taking aim at Japan’s exports to the US, especially in areas like automobiles.

The dispute is likely to have consequences on both the economic and political fronts, not only for the two countries, but beyond their borders too. There are fears that this could affect global supply chains and could hurt the fortunes of large tech companies across the world.

On the bilateral front, it is likely to worsen relations between the two countries, at one of the lowest points in the wake of a series of incidents. Already some South Korean businesses have called for a boycott of Japanese products.

It is also likely to make the resolution of the North Korean dispute even more difficult especially with respect to Japan’s ties with North Korea. Pyongyang has just tested two short-range missiles which clearly indicates that it is not willing to let go of its arsenal of nuclear weapons or missiles.

In addition, it is likely to make Washington’s task in Northeast Asia much more complicated. Both South Korea and Japan are strong US allies and any US misstep might see South Korea moving closer to China in the region.

For Abe, this comes at a time when his ruling coalition has secured a majority in the recent Upper House elections, though it won’t be enough to help him proceed with his pet project of constitutional amendment. For South Korean President Moon Jae-in, he is appealing to his domestic constituency as well through this issue. He has already been at loggerheads with Tokyo on a host of issues.

Even though South Korea has taken the dispute to the World Trade Organization, it has failed to elicit support there. What is clear is that we are unlikely to see a quick resolution to this trade dispute between Japan and South Korea. Tokyo under Abe clearly has an edge over Seoul on this issue and hence can afford to bide its time and this is exactly what it seems to be doing at the moment.

Rupakjyoti Borah (rupakj@gmail.com) is a research fellow with the Tokyo-based Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. He has been an Assistant Professor of International Relations in India and a Visiting Fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs. The views expressed are personal. He tweets at @rupakj
Foreign Minister of Japan Tarō Kōno seeks cooperation from Mongolia over efforts to settle the issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, as Mongolia maintains friendly ties with Pyongyang. Japan has no ties with North Korea and pushes for further sanctions.