North Korea Proposes a Joint Investigation on Kidnapped Japanese

To iron out the problem of the kidnapped Japanese, North Korea made an unofficial proposal to the Japanese government suggesting that they should establish a North Korea-Japan Joint Investigation Committee to be in charge of the investigation on the 10 Japanese people, whose living status has not yet been identified, a Tokyo newspaper reported on March 9.

North Korea made this proposal under the condition that Japan should burden all expenses incurred prior to the official North Korea-Japan conference which was held in the middle of last month in Pyongyang. Besides the 10 Japanese people, whose living status was not confirmed, North Korea announced it had a plan to investigate the other missing people not labeled as “kidnapped” by the Japanese government.

North Korea suggested that they should establish a working-level committee to directly investigate the inviting places and other dwelling places where the victims stayed just after their kidnapping in North Korea, but according to the newspaper, as Tokyo responded actively to this problem, North Korea avoided a direct answer.

Won-Jae Park parkwj@donga.com