Japan and North Korea wrapped up a rare meeting Thursday without a breakthrough in an emotional row over kidnappings, but they pledged to keep talking amid small signs of hope between the arch-rivals.
North Korean envoy Kim Chul Ho said relations with Japan remained poor despite the completion of the two-day meeting in Mongolia, which was set up as part of a US-backed denuclearisation deal with Pyongyang. But unlike in earlier meetings, neither side walked out and Kim said Pyongyang was ready to continue talking to Tokyo about its kidnappings of Japanese civilians to train its spies in the 1970s and 1980s.
"We have taken the position that the abduction issue has been settled, and there's no change in our position," he said in Ulan Bator. "There remains a gap between us and Japan and we will continue talks to narrow the gap." "Currently, relations between Japan and North Korea are at a historic low," he said, as quoted by Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
Japanese envoy Yoshiki Mine was more conciliatory. "Through the two-day talks, we took time to exchange each other's opinions, which was meaningful, although we still did not resolve the issue," he said of the kidnappings. "I think there was a certain progress."
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura was more guarded in his assessment of the meeting. "I can't help but say there was no major progress, but it led to future dialogue. We should not evaluate the talks very positively or very negatively right now," he said in Sydney, where he is attending an Asia-Pacific meeting.
North Korea has acknowledged kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture. It returned five victims and their families and says the row is resolved. Japan insists that North Korea is hiding survivors and abducted more people it does not acknowledge.
Japan has called on North Korea to take concrete steps to settle the dispute, on which politically embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long campaigned. "Unless we make progress towards resolving this issue, we cannot consider it an achievement if we just keep talking," Abe said in Tokyo. The meeting on normalising relations was held under the aegis of a US-backed six-nation agreement reached in February on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive. Japan and North Korea have never established diplomatic ties. North Korea has insisted that Japan come up with compensation for its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. But the two nations, which often exchange harsh criticism, met over dinner for a few hours on the first day of talks, Japanese media said.
The last negotiations, held in Vietnam in March, broke down in acrimony and mutual accusations, with the last day winding up in a mere 45 minutes. Abe's government slapped sweeping sanctions on North Korea after it tested an atom bomb last year, banning all imports and visits by all officials and ships.