hankyoreh

Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

With North Korea and Japan quickly drawing closer on the issue of abducted Japanese, the heads of the Japanese and South Korean delegations to the six-party talks returned to the table after a long hiatus. Even while indicating that it understands that the Japanese government is trying to resolve the abductee issue, South Korea insisted that the issue must not have an effect on cooperation between South Korea and Japan, as well as between South Korea, Japan, and the US, to resolve the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons.

Hwang Joon-kook, representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs for the South Korean Foreign Ministry and the six-party talks, arrived at the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, at 3 pm on July 16, where he met the Japanese envoy, Junichi Ihara, chief of the Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

After the meeting, Hwang met with Tokyo correspondents of South Korean media and said, “We confirmed our agreement about strengthening cooperation between South Korea and Japan, and between South Korea, Japan, and the US, on the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons and missiles. We also agreed to look into taking stronger action on the issue of missiles.”

In regard to the recent interaction between North Korea and Japan, Hwang said, “We support Japan’s desire to resolve the abductee issue, which is a humanitarian concern. We will continue to deliberate to ensure that this issue does not affect our cooperation on the North Korean nuclear issue.”

But when asked about the possibility of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visiting North Korea or about talks being held between the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, or North Korea and Japan, Hwang said that had not been discussed. While the meeting had originally been scheduled to last for an hour and a half, it ended up taking two hours. The length may reflect the current status of relations between the countries, which has resulted in quite a few matters to discuss.

The meeting attracted considerable attention since it occurred as Japan is increasing its interaction with North Korea. On July 4, Japan revoked some of its independent economic sanctions against the North.

Though the Japanese and South Korean representatives to the six-party talks sat down together in a trilateral meeting with the US at the Hague in March, this was their first bilateral meeting since the launch of the Park Geun-hye administration in Feb. 2013.

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