Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

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One year after Pyongyang declaration-----huge number of South Korean and Japanese people have been abducted by Pyongyang : a problem pending between North Korea and other asian countries
　
On September 17th,one year has passed since Mr.Koizumi and Mr.Kim Jong-il signed Pyongyagn Declaration.


Since before Mr.Koizumi went to the summit with Mr.Kim, he had proclaimed that without the settlement of the abduction issue, Japan wouldn't normalize the diplomatic relationship with North Korea. In a sense his clear message made the summit realized and lead to that the five abduction victims' coming back to homeland.

But just after Pyongyang declaration, Northkorea admitted its development of nuclear weapon and it has taken the brinksmanship. The five abduction victims came back home last October, but their children are still detained in North Korea. Almost one year has passed since the families broke up. It is unacceptable from a humanitarian point of view. Japan is calling for Pyongyang to let their families come to homeland as soon as possible.

Looking back upon this one year, the abduction issue gave a great shock to Japanese people. These 20 years North Korean espionages has invaded into Japan and abducted many Japanese people to Pyongyang by force.

In this abduction issue, it was made clear that Japanese government hadn't done its duty to protect the people's lives and property. Japanese people's sense of crisis has brought up a sort of nation consciousness. North Korea's development of nuclear weapon and deployment of ballistic missiles had changed Japanese people's security consciousness and it lead to the approval of the contingency-related bills and Antiterrorism Law. It is natural that the government is going to introduce the Missile diffence system against North Korea.

Except for the abduction issue and nulcear weapon development, many information about "true" North Korea have flooded Japan. Pyongyang's wrongdoing such as smuggling of stimulant drug, dirty remittance, smuggling of the parts of missile or labor camp has turned out. The true image of North Korea appeared to other asian people.

Although the abduction issue has been deadlocked for Japan, internatinally North Korea has been criticized more and more severly. In April the UN human rights committee adopted the resolution to denounce North Korea. In Avian Summit in June, "the abduction issue should be settled" was specified in the chairman's summary. In this issu, North Korea has been more and more isolated internationally.

As for the issue of nuclear weapon development, in the US-North Korea-China talk in April and in the six countries talk including Japan,South Korea and Russia in August, North Korea was surely cornered. North Korea is negative about the six countries' talk but it should participate in the talk. And Japan have to call for resuming the talk to settle the abduction issue to Pyongyang.

In that case, the two countries have to go back to the Pyongyang declaration which is the start point to normalize the diplomatic relation between the two countries. It is written in the declaration that the two countries had to make all efforts in order to normalize the diplomatic relationship. For Pyongyang, it is the pending issue such as nulear weapon or abduction issue.

It is natural that the Japanese government regards the settlement of the abduction issue as the precondition for talks. And it is natural that east Asian countries call for the abolition of nuclear weapons in the Korean peninsula too. Pyongyang must get aware that not only Japan but also the entire international society wants the settlement of the pending issues to Pyongyang.

[Corey]

What is the source for this story?

Corey
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Niagara Summer Programs

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it comes from many news in South Korea and Japan and so on. including the announcement by Pyongyang itself

[Diana]

I've read in the news that North Korea have banned multilateral talks with Japan because Japan brought up the issue of the kidnapped Japanese citizens. It is important to keep North Korea on multilateral talks. Japan and South Korea see North Korea as a threat while I don't think China and Russia would want another nuclear power country in the area.

What I want to know is why is he kidnapping Japanese and South Koreans? For what purpose?

[SN]

Why has North Korea abducted many Japanese and South Korean?.

Since North Korea was founded, Pyonyang has been insisting that South Korea is the colony of the imperialism of USA and that it has to be set free from it. Many Japanese and South Korean were abducted by North Korea in order that Pyonyang uses them in the maneuvering against South Korea, that means to weaken and overthrow South Korean government.

North Korea has regarded Japan as a sort of base for its spying activities. Via Japan, it has been doing the invasion into South Korea,the contact with spies in South Korea, espionage activities.

And in order to invade into Japan and to do spy activities more, Japanese language ability is essential condition and all spies have to be trained to become �Japanese�. On that purpose, North Korea has abducted many Japanese people and use them for training Korean spies.

Actually it was easier for North Korean spies to invade Japan than to invade South Korea. That was because Japan didn�t recongize any menace from North Korea and because Japanese government couldn�t be on its coastal guard with its armed force due to the international law.

About 20 years ago, 115 people were killed in the explosion of the South Korean airliner. The explosion was the terror attack by North Korean terrorist, who had Japanese passport and could speak Japanese fluently. In the later investigation, it was made obvious that the terrorist was trained by one of abducted Japanese. Megumi Yokota, who was abducted, was made to teach North Korean spies for their Japanization.