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OPINION:
In September 2002, North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, admitted to visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that North Korea had abducted 13 Japanese citizens. Eight of them were dead, and five could visit Japan and return to North Korea.
The Japanese public was shocked by this unsettling news. Eight dead? At Japan’s request, North Korea returned the remains of Megumi Yokota and Kaoru Matsuki to Japan for forensic analysis. The analysis determined the remains did not belong to either person.
In October 2002, President George W. Bush sent James Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, to Pyongyang for meetings with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju. During their meeting, Mr. Kang admitted that North Korea had an active gas centrifuge program to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. He rhetorically asked what the U.S. was prepared to do about such a program. The meeting then ended abruptly.
These are the two issues that continue to poison relations with North Korea. Mr. Koizumi visited North Korea in the spirit of improving relations: North Korea apologizing, returning all the Japanese citizens it had abducted and adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other nuclear commitments, given that in 1998 North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong missile that flew over Japan. Mr. Koizumi’s meeting with Mr. Kim was not the success it was meant to be. The Japanese public was irate.
The abductee issue remains unresolved, with a mandate from the people that there be closure on this sordid chapter of Japan-North Korea relations. Yokota Sakie, the mother of Yokota Megumi, who was a first-year junior high school student when she was abducted in 1977, recently had a press conference imploring the government to bring back the abductees. Ms. Sakie is the only surviving parent of the government-recognized abductees who remain unaccounted for.
Japan recognizes 17 citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Five returned to Japan in 2002, but the other 12 are unaccounted for. Other estimates put the number of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea during that period in the hundreds.
North Korea’s highly enriched uranium program continues to be the major stumbling block in resolving the nuclear issue. When North Korea was confronted with intelligence indicating a clandestine uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons in 2002, Mr. Kang did not deny it; rather, he apparently made clear there was nothing the U.S. or anyone else could do about it. It also speaks to North Korea’s long-held determination to be a nuclear weapons state. So, despite the Agreed Framework of 1994 that was meant to end North Korea’s quest for a nuclear weapon, Pyongyang pursued a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
Indeed, North Korea is now open about this uranium enrichment program. The 2019 Hanoi Summit failed because of Mr. Kim’s unwillingness to include his uranium enrichment sites, in addition to the Yongbyon plutonium site, in a deal to lift sanctions in return for a halt in all nuclear programs. Mr. Kim recently visited another enrichment site, apparently at Yongbyon, where he was shown pictures of shining centrifuges.
North Korea continues to produce fissile material — plutonium and enriched uranium — for nuclear weapons while enhancing its ballistic missile capabilities with a Hwasong-18, a solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile capable of targeting the whole of the U.S. Most recently, Mr. Kim talked about North Korea’s goal of having a blue water navy, which would give North Korea considerable reach in international waters. That would be an obvious threat to Japan and other neighboring countries.
North Korea’s enhanced nuclear and missile programs, its mutual defense treaty with Russia — with more than 11,000 North Korean troops in Russia for the war with Ukraine — and its ballistic missiles and artillery and rocket launchers all require immediate attention.
On Thursday, the United Nations will hold an online symposium on the abduction issue. Given that it’s an “ongoing problem and an international challenge that requires immediate resolution,” I and hopefully many others will tune in.
•The author is a former special envoy for the six-party talks with North Korea, director of the National Counterproliferation Center and associate director of national intelligence. The views are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.
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