Japan is considering a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, local media reported, as diplomatic efforts to engage Pyongyang ramp up.

The reports come after the surprise announcement that US President Donald Trump plans his own talks with the North Korean leader, part of fast-paced diplomatic developments following an Olympic detente.

However, there have been no public proposals of talks by either Pyongyang or Tokyo.

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported a potential Abe-Kim summit late Tuesday, citing unnamed government sources who said the talks could be part of a new approach by Tokyo to dealing with the North.

Hours later, Jiji Press reported a similar story, saying Tokyo fears being left behind in dealing with the North if talks proceed between the isolated nation and South Korea and Washington without Japan's involvement.

Contacted by AFP, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said she could not confirm any concrete plans for a summit.

But she added "we will be studying our policies from the viewpoint of what is most effective" to resolve the issues of North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes as well as the abduction of Japanese citizens by Pyongyang.

Earlier this week, South Korean envoy Suh Hoon visited Tokyo to brief Japan's leadership on the fast-moving diplomatic process that saw an announcement last week of a historic US-North Korea summit to discuss Pyongyang's denuclearisation.

Suh, the chief of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, on Tuesday met with Abe but it was unclear if he brought a message from the North Korean leader to propose a summit with Japan.

Media reports and experts say Tokyo fears it may be left out of developments around North Korea, and worries that the issue of abducted Japanese citizens is being sidelined.

But the possibility of an Abe-Kim summit also comes as the Japanese premier faces a growing scandal at home over the sale of government land to one of his supporters, and an apparent cover-up of the deal by the finance ministry.

Abe rose to political prominence on his calls for a tough line on North Korea, particularly over its abductions of Japanese citizens.

Japan, a close US ally in the region, is in the firing line of North Korean missiles and saw two fly over its territory in 2017, sparking outrage and lifting tensions to fever pitch.

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.</s>Kumzar village in Oman has a thousand year-old language of its own that no one else on earth understands

Home to 4,000 people and overlooking the strategic Straits of Hormuz that Iran has threatened to close, Kumzar village has a thousand year-old language of its own that no one else on earth understands.</s>Japan on Tuesday emphasised the need for North Korea to take ‘concrete actions’ in regard with denuclearization.

In the purview of the expected visit of US President Donald Trump to North Korea in May, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called upon North Korea to convert words into actions in regard to denuclearisation of the latter, as reported by the Yonhap news agency.

Abe made the remarks during his meeting with South Korean National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon, who was visiting Tokyo to brief him on the outcome of his recent trips to Pyongyang and Washington.

He further highlighted the issue of abducted Japanese nationals in the territory of North Korea and called for its resolution.

“It is our basic stance that the nuclear and missile problems and the kidnapping issue of Japanese people should be resolved. It is important to implement words through action and for the North to take concrete action”, Yonhap quotes Abe as saying.

The Japanese Prime Minister, however, seemed optimist about North Korea to cooperate in the process of denuclearization.

“I do not believe North Korea would use this chance simply to buy more time because it now has to face important negotiations, such as a North Korea-U.S. summit following a South-North Korea summit,” Abe told Suh, according to South Korea’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.

Abe was also quoted as saying that Japan is ready to provide all necessary support and cooperation in making the planned back-to-back summits a success.

The spy agency chief Hoon arrived in Japan on Monday and held a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.

His visit is part of Seoul’s efforts to rally support for the recent breakthroughs in bringing the North to talks and to get other key stakeholders including China, Russia and Japan on board.

Both North and South Korea have established a dialogue among them regarding the denuclearisation of North Korea after being persisted by Japan and United States.

South Korea had earlier sent a team of envoys to North Korea to discuss regarding denuclearisation. Post which the North Korean leader agreed to hold a summit with President Moon Jae-in in April and further expressed willingness to hold denuclearisation talks with the United States.

On the similar lines, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would be meeting the USpresident Donald Trump in April to pressurise North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.</s>The announcement that Donald Trump had agreed to a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un caught everyone, including the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense, South Korean envoys and North Korea, by surprise. It was classic Trump: Act first and think later.

His decision was driven by Trump’s impulsive personality, a reality TV view of the world, an obsession with doing the opposite of past presidents and the conviction that he is an unmatched deal-maker. This was not part of a long-term strategy. On the contrary, Trump’s North Korea policy is improvised and consists of threats, military preparations and punishing North Korea rather than preparations for negotiations. The U.S. is now scrambling to find officials in the depleted State Department with the required expertise to prepare for the Summit.

By contrast, the Summit is the culmination of a long-term strategy by Kim Jong Un to develop his nuclear arsenal, withstand sanctions and come to the negotiating table with a strong hand.

In agreeing to the meeting, Trump upended longstanding U.S. policy and diplomatic practice. First, the U.S. has insisted for years that it would not talk to North Korea unless North Korea made a verifiable commitment to irreversible denuclearization. In this case, all North Korea has agreed to is what it has proposed to past administrations: a vague willingness to discuss denuclearization in return for an undefined security guarantee for North Korea.

Second, the longtime U.S. position was reiterated by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson just hours before the announcement of the Summit when he said that it would be premature to consider talks in the absence of such a verifiable commitment.

Third, U.S. diplomatic practice is that before any negotiations, there are exhaustive inter-agency consultations followed by development of a detailed negotiating plan. In the case of the Iran agreement, the U.S. negotiating document ran to 100 pages. In this case, the U.S. will be hard-pressed to develop a detailed negotiating position prior to the Summit, let alone get Trump to follow it. By contrast, Kim can be expected to come to the talks with a well-formulated negotiating position.

Fourth, preliminary diplomatic negotiations are always held at officials level with any presidential involvement kept in reserve as a valuable bargaining chip. In this case, Trump has given away a major card without receiving anything in return. Moreover, preliminary discussions lessen the risk of counter-productive failure of talks at the highest level.

Fifth, Trump has provided North Korea and Kim personally with a significant diplomatic triumph and political legitimacy, as North Korea has long sought such a meeting, in vain.

Sixth, members of his administration have realized the risks of his impulsive decision and have tried to walk it back and re-impose pre-conditions. However, Trump has undermined their efforts insisting the meeting will go ahead, time and place to be determined.

There are a variety of possible outcomes for the Summit:

1) The “do no harm” scenario is that the two sides have an amicable photo-op and agree on further discussions at the level of officials.

2) Driven by Trump’s desire to make a deal, Kim’s determination to maintain his nuclear arsenal and Kim’s satisfaction that he has achieved a sufficient deterrent status, the above scenario could be accompanied by an agreement to continue the suspension of tests, perhaps in return for the easing of sanctions.

3) Seeking a deal, ignoring the advice of his experts and believing he had received some sort of denuclearization commitment from Kim, Trump could entertain North Korean demands for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea. This is an unlikely result and one that would alarm South Korea, Japan and U.S. experts.

4) Kim could make a general commitment to denuclearize. A genuine commitment is very unlikely and very difficult to verify. Huge and politically unacceptable concessions by the U.S. would be demanded, including withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula, renunciation of the mutual defence treaty with South Korea, complete lifting of sanctions, economic assistance and the conclusion of a peace treaty.

5) The meeting could swiftly flounder if Trump insists that denuclearization is the only purpose of the talks and refuses to entertain lifting of sanctions or security guarantees for North Korea.

6) The worst-case scenario would be a meeting marked by insults and threats, followed by military preparations. This would alarm South Korea and Japan and is why such a Summit should be avoided in the first place.

Given the unpredictability of the two leaders and their past history, it’s still a question whether the Summit will actually occur. If it does, the final result could be some combination of the above. South Korea and Japan fear both inappropriate concessions by Trump and a breakdown in talks leading to renewed emphasis on military options. Kim will try to manipulate Trump using charm, flattery and appeals to his vanity, tactics that have proven successful for other leaders dealing with Trump.

Various venues have been mentioned for the Summit including Switzerland, China, Russia, the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) and Pyongyang. The most likely venue is the DMZ, a neutral area easily accessible by both leaders. Both sides would probably be reluctant to give the appearance that China or Russia would in some way influence the result and Switzerland is too far from Pyongyang. Moreover Kim has never left North Korea as leader and it is doubtful he would start now.

NEW: Kim Jong Un wants to sign peace treaty after meeting Trump, South Korean media reports

From a U.S. perspective, the worst venue would be Pyongyang itself, giving North Korea a major home field advantage, the ability to shape the agenda and to put on a show for the easily impressed president. Of course, opposition by his own experts could make Pyongyang seem more attractive to the contrarian Trump.

Ultimately, the issue is not whether there should be talks between the U.S. and North Korea; in fact, there should be. The U.S. position attaching the pre-condition of verifiable denuclearization before talks was always unrealistic as the North Koreans were never going to agree to that.

The issue is whether the U.S .is prepared for talks and whether Donald Trump, unversed in the facts and subtleties of the Korean Peninsula, should be the one to conduct such talks. The answer is no.

James Trottier is a Fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a former career Canadian diplomat who directed the political/economic (diplomatic) programs at the Canadian Embassies in South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines and also served at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN in New York. He was accredited to North Korea and led four Canadian diplomatic delegations to North Korea in 2015 and 2016 and has served as a diplomatic liaison officer to US/UN Forces in South Korea. Reach him at: trottierjames@hotmail.com</s>The following content is sourced from external partners. We cannot guarantee that it is suitable for the visually or hearing impaired.

This content was published on March 13, 2018 2:14 PM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Differences between Japan and South Korea on how to handle North Korea emerged on Tuesday with South Korea upbeat on prospects but a more cautious Japan demanding that North Korea account for Japanese people it says North Korea abducted decades ago.

Signs of easing tension with North Korea began during the Winter Olympics last month, when the North sent a high-level delegation to the South for the Games, after more than a year of rising alarm over the North's nuclear weapon and missile tests.

Japan has been more guarded about the prospect of talks between the two Koreas, and between North Korea and the United States. Japan has warned that "talks for the sake of talks" would be unacceptable.

South Korean officials have been briefing neighbours and allies, including Japan, on a South Korean delegation's visit to North Korea last week, which included talks with leader Kim Jong Un and agreements on summits with both South Korea and the United States.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday met South Korean National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon. Suh, a member of the South Korean team that visited North Korea, held talks on Monday with Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono.

Abe told Suh that Japan wanted any denuclearisation talks with North Korea to also address a dispute over the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. He also said North Korea had to show its willingness to disarm.

"A resolution of the abduction, nuclear and missile issues is Japan's core policy," Abe said.

"North Korea must match its words with actions."

A Japanese government source later said Japan was considering seeking a summit between Abe and North Korea's Kim to discuss the abductions.

Abe has made the abductions a keystone of his political career and has said he would not rest until all 13 of the people North Korea admitted to kidnapping have returned and the isolated state divulges information about the others Japan suspects were taken to train North Korean spies.

North Korea allowed five people it abducted to return to Japan.

Abe's insistence that the abductions be included in any North Korean talks may be a source of friction with South Korea.

Reflecting that possibility, South Korea's presidential office made no mention of Abe's call on the abduction issue in a statement after his talks with Suh.

The South's presidential Blue House said Abe told Suh he did not believe North Korea would use the summits to buy time to pursue its nuclear and missile programmes.

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman declined to say whether Abe had made the remark but said it was unusual for South Korea to be making statements on Japan's behalf.

Similarly, on Monday, the Blue House cited Japanese Foreign Minister Kono as saying the progress with North Korea was a "miracle".

In Japan, Kono made no mention of a miracle but said Japan and South Korea had agreed to maintain "maximum pressure" on North Korea until it takes "concrete action".

Suh was due back in Seoul on Tuesday, while South Korea's National Security Office chief, Chung Eui-yong, who led the delegation to Pyongyang, is holding talks in Russia following talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday.

The Chinese leader told Chung China looked forward to an important opportunity for talks.

Trump has agreed to meet North Korea's Kim by the end of May. South Korean President Moon Jae-in plans to hold his summit with Kim by the end of April.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking on Monday in Nigeria, said preparations for Trump's meeting, including determining the location and agenda, were still at a "very early stage."

Washington had still to hear directly from Pyongyang, he added.

The White House said it fully expected the meeting to take place, if North Korea stuck to its promises.

Abe, who asked Trump for help to resolve the abduction issue in a telephone call after the planned talks were announced, said he aims to meet Trump in the United States next month.</s>Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reportedly considering holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, despite earlier reservations about dialog with Pyongyang.

 Japanese local media cited an unnamed government source as saying on Wednesday that Tokyo was considering seeking a summit between Abe and Kim.

 The development came almost a week after US President Donald Trump announced he had accepted an invitation by Pyongyang to sit down with Kim without any preconditions. One of the South Korean official who had earlier met with Kim and who had delivered the invitation to Trump in Washington also met with Abe in Tokyo.

 Tokyo is said to be considering using a future meeting to discuss the fate of citizens that it alleges were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the local media.

 Abe has previously told Seoul that Japan wanted any demilitarization talks with Pyongyang to address the issue of the alleged abductions.

 “A resolution of the abduction, nuclear, and missile issues is Japan’s core policy,” the prime minister said earlier. “North Korea must match its words with actions.”

 Japan seemed to have early reservations about talks with North Korea. Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Abe said Tokyo would continue “utmost pressure” on Pyongyang to bring about denuclearization.

 This is while China and Russia both welcomed the potential meeting between Trump and Kim. Analysts attributed Tokyo’s cold response to fears that if Pyongyang “sits down with Washington, it will have absolutely no interest whatsoever in sitting down with Japan.—Agencies</s>Billy is the editor of Verdict. You can reach him at billy.bambrough@verdict.co.uk

As the world is still reeling from the shock announcement that US President Donald Trump could soon meet with Kim Jong-un, Japan’s top government spokesman has revealed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might soon sit down with the North Korean leader.

Abe wants to discuss the matter of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang’s agents decades ago with Kim.

Kim is also expected to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April.

Earlier this week, South Korean envoy Suh Hoon visited Tokyo to brief Japan’s leadership on the fast-moving diplomatic process.

It is important to harmonise policies closely among Japan, the United States and South Korea ahead of the North-South summit and the US-North Korea summit. After that, while liaising closing among the three countries, we will address how to comprehensively resolve the nuclear, missile and abduction issues. Amid that, we want to consider what would be most effective and address the issues from that perspective.

It’s thought more than a dozen Japanese nationals were abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. They were then put to work teaching North Korean special forces about the Japanese language and culture to enable them to blend in during missions to Japan.

Read more: Here are all the places where Trump might meet Kim

In 2002 the then Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, meet with Kim Jong-il — the father of the current North Korea ruler — in Pyongyang where he acknowledged the country had targeted Japanese citizens and vowed that the abductions had ended.

Abe has since made the abductees issue a keystone of his political career and has previously used a telephone call with Trump to ask the US for help to resolve the issue.

Japan has also called on US support after North Korean missiles flew over its territory in 2017, sparking outrage and lifting tensions to fever pitch.

Meanwhile, Abe is facing a growing scandal at home over the sale of government land to one of his supporters, and an apparent cover-up of the deal by the finance ministry.</s>Japan's top government spokesman left the door open on Wednesday to a possible summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss the matter of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents decades ago.

TOKYO: Japan's top government spokesman left the door open on Wednesday to a possible summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss the matter of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents decades ago.

Abe, who has made the abductees issue a keystone of his political career, will meet U.S. President Donald Trump next month in Washington ahead of a proposed summit between the U.S. leader and Pyongyang's Kim, which would follow a planned April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Worries have surfaced in Tokyo that Japan's interests, including the abductees' fate, may be sidelined by recent moves to resolve the crisis over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

"It is important to harmonise policies closely among Japan, the United States and South Korea ahead of the North-South summit and the U.S-North Korea summit," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference.

"After that, while liaising closing among the three countries, we will address how to comprehensively resolve the nuclear, missile and abduction issues. Amid that, we want to consider what would be most effective and address the issues from that perspective," Suga added.

On Tuesday, a government source said the administration was considering seeking an Abe-Kim meeting. He declined to be identified because he's not authorised to speak to media.

Abe, 63, has said he would not rest until all 13 of the people North Korea admitted to kidnapping have returned and divulges information about the others that Japan suspects were taken to train as North Korean spies.

But progress has largely stalled since 2002, when five of the 13 returned home. Pyongyang said the other eight were dead.

A ruling coalition lawmaker said that it was too early to plan for two-way talks with Pyongyang on the kidnappings.

"The order is a North-South summit, followed by a U.S.-North Korea summit. We have to see how they go first,” said the lawmaker, who is well-versed in diplomatic affairs.

Speculation about a Abe-Kim summit emerges periodically, especially when his ratings are soggy.

Then-premier Junichiro Koizumi, got a popularity boost after his 2002 visit to Pyongyang and in 2004 when he brought back five children of abductees.

Abe is facing perhaps the worst crisis since taking office as doubts swirl over a suspected cronyism scandal centred on the discounted sale of state-owned land to a school with ties to his wife. He has denied wrongdoing either by himself or his spouse.</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 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.
Anonymous Japanese government sources say that Japan is considering a summit meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.