By Clint Richards
North Korea appears to feel that it has loosened the shackles of isolation enough for now.
This has been a busy week for North Korea, as speculation about the health of its leader Kim Jong-un reached a fever pitch until Monday, when he finally reemerged in official North Korean media, with the use of a cane. On Wednesday, North and South Korean military officials held their highest level talks in seven years in the border village of Panmunjom, with Yonhap News reporting Thursday that a North Korea had proposed “exclusive emergency” talks on October 7, in a message from Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so. Pyongyang also made a breakthrough last week when two senior level officials acknowledged the North’s “reform through labor” camps for the first time, and affirmed their country’s openness to dialogue on the issue of human rights.
Amidst this greater openness to diplomacy, and even acknowledging the international ruckus being caused by Kim’s long absence from the public eye by showing pictures of him after he missed a key public anniversary last Friday, Pyongyang’s relations with Japan have stalled. After what appeared to be a promising restart this summer into the investigation of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s, North Korea failed to produce its initial report, which was due by late summer or early fall. After saying that the investigation was just beginning and that only initial findings could be provided, Pyongyang proposed that Japanese officials visit the capital and see for themselves what progress had been made.
The abductee issue has seemingly taken a back seat in both international media coverage and North Korea’s attention, giving way to a focus on both Kim Jong-un’s health and high-level talks with South Korean officials. The issue has not fallen off Japan’s radar, however, as the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has developed a healthy degree of skepticism after initial progress and the lifting of some of Japan’s sanctions in early July.
Read the full story at The Diplomat