Abe gives 7-minute mentoring to Kerry

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly urged the visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to not be cheated by North Korea in a seven-minute closed bilateral meeting in the absence of their aides on Monday. In interviews with U.S. TV networks NBC and CBS after the meeting, Kerry, who had been emphasizing dialogue with Pyongyang, said, “There will be no negotiations or dialogue unless North Korea demonstrates that it is ready to move to a direction that the international community wants. We will not repeat the same cycle,” in emphasizing the matter of principle.

Kerry’s remarks seem to represent an attempt to make internal conclusion by the U.S., which had displayed changing stances over dialogue with Pyongyang. However, some analysts say that Kerry might have been influenced by Abe’s persuasion considering the timing of the secretary’s remarks. Japanese media has spotlighted this aspect more than anything.

According to Japanese media on Tuesday, Prime Minister Abe asked Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos to leave the meeting room in the final segment of their hour-long talks at his residence Monday, and held “secretive bilateral talks” with Kerry, only with their interpreters on their side.

The Sankei Shimbun reported that before Abe asked for secretive talks, he said at the meeting, “North Korea has repeatedly used ‘brinkmanship diplomacy’ for three generations. So-called ‘dialogue’ only faced betrayals several times. North Korea uses a method to gain something by creating a crisis. We should keep that in mind.” Analysts say their bilateral talks would have been conducted to extend this line of conversations.

The newspaper also reported that in the course of consulting with Washington in advance about the itinerary of Kerry’s tour to the three Northeast Asian countries, Japan demanded, saying, “It is okay (for Secretary Kerry) to visit Japan as the final leg of the tour, but we would like the secretary to inform us in details of his dialogues in South Korea and China.” During the visit to Japan in June 2007, then Prime Minister Abe was dismayed at Christopher Hill, then U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, since the U.S. ambassador failed to inform the next itinerary of Pyongyang, a fulgurous trip to the reclusive country. For this reason, analysts say that the Japanese leader put priority on “practical gains,” rather than “saving face” this time around.

bae2150@donga.com