Sister of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un rules out Pyongyang summit with Japan’s PM Takaichi

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rejected Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s reported interest in holding a summit with Mr Kim, saying talks would not happen simply because Japan wants them.

“If the Prime Minister of Japan seeks to resolve its unilateral matter not recognised by us, our state leadership will have no intention to meet or sit face to face with her,” Ms Kim Yo Jong said, according to the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state media.

In Ms Takaichi’s recent summit with US President Donald Trump last week, she expressed strong willingness to meet directly with the North Korean leader to resolve issues such as the abduction of Japanese nationals, Chosun Ilbo reported. 

For the leaders of the two countries to meet each other, Japan should first break from its “anachronistic practice and habit”, Mr Kim’s sister said. But today’s Japan has gone too far in the opposite direction, she added.

“I don’t want to see the Prime Minister of Japan coming to Pyongyang. However, this is just my personal position,” she said.

The latest comments indicate that while there have been media reports that Mr Trump might be looking to meet with Mr Kim, when it comes to Japan, North Korea is sticking to its robust opposition to any talks.

Ms Kim is one of the main voices for the regime. She was recently promoted in the latest sign of the Kim family consolidating its grip on power.

Tokyo officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, five of whom returned home in 2002 after then Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang. The actual number of those abducted is believed to be higher.

North Korea considers the issue settled and has blasted Japan for repeatedly raising it. Pyongyang claims that eight of the abductees have died and the other four were never in its country. BLOOMBERG