North Korea has agreed to open a new investigation into the fate of Japanese citizens it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s in return for the lifting of some sanctions, the two countries said on Thursday.
Japan will lift the sanctions after it confirms that a committee has been set up and has begun work, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. It will also consider possible humanitarian aid to North Korea depending on the progress of the investigation, which is expected to start in about three weeks, he said.
The sanctions, which are in addition to U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea, include restrictions on bilateral exchanges, limits on how much money ethnic Koreans in Japan can take on visits to North Korea, and a ban on port calls by North Korean-flagged ships.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the North agreed to set up an investigation committee and, if survivors are found, to take necessary steps for sending them back to Japan.
Japan, in exchange, “re-clarified its will to settle its inglorious past, solve the pending issues and normalize the relations,” KCNA said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the agreement was a first step toward resolving the kidnapping issue, which has long kept the nations at odds.
It came during three days of talks between North Korean and Japanese officials in Stockholm earlier this week.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. It allowed five of them to return to in 2002, but said the others had died. Japan remains suspicious of that finding, and has identified others it believes were abducted too. It has been demanding a new investigation into fate of the remaining abductees and wants any still alive to be returned.
