hankyoreh

which is the pro-Pyeongyang federation of Korean residents in Japan

On June 13, Tokyo announced that it would lift some of the sanctions it has imposed on Pyongyang, leading some to believe that there could be signs of improvement in relations between the two countries. Japan has implemented economic sanctions against North Korea three times since the North conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and ties between North Korea and Japan have been tense since 2002 surrounding the kidnapping of Japanese citizens.

After a June 13 briefing to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on the results of recent talks between North Korea and Japan, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura announced that her nation would remove some of the sanctions against North Korea.

During a press conference, Minister Komura said that North Korea had agreed to extradite the people who had hijacked a Japanese airliner and to investigate the abduction issue.

Nine members of the Red Army faction, which was a predecessor of the Japanese Red Army, hijacked Japanese Airlines flight 351 on March 20, 1970, and flew to Pyongyang. In Japanese, this is referred to as the Yodo Hijacking. Some of the hijackers have been resident in North Korea since the incident but have since asked to be extradited to Japan.

Minister Komura added that Japan will lift its travel ban on North Korea and permit the North to operate chartered airplanes. However, there was no mention about resumption of North Korean ship Mangyeongbong’s entry to Japan, which has been strongly demanded by the North. The North Korean cargo ship Mangyeongbong, which makes frequent trips between North Korea and Japan, was prohibited from entering a Japanese port after a North Korean missile test in July 2006.

During the talks held to normalize relations between North Korea and Japan in Beijing on June 12, the North was reported to have promised that it would not, as it has it the past, take the position that the kidnapping issue had already been resolved. Pyongyang also said that it would return the three surviving hijackers and cooperate in reinvestigating the abduction issue, according to various sources.

North Korea has adjusted its position on the kidnapping issue following an improvement in relations with the United States, which has in turn urged the North to make an effort to improve ties with Japan several times in the past. Accordingly, North Korea has started to take decisive action that deviates from its previous stance of only mediating talks between Japan and the hijackers involved in the Yodo incident.

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