Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday expressed her determination to achieve a \u201cbreakthrough\u201d in resolving the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, vowing to weigh all options, including summit talks.<\/p>\n
At a rally in Tokyo calling for the return of Japanese abductees, Takaichi urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to take a \u201ccourageous step\u201d together for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever it takes, I will resolve the abduction issue by making a breakthrough during my time (in office),\u201d Takaichi, who became prime minister last October, told the gathering organised by family members of those abducted by North Korea and their supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are tackling this issue seriously with a determination not to miss the slightest chance of making concrete progress as soon as possible, even by a day or an hour,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Japanese government officially lists 17 Japanese nationals as having been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n
Five abductees were returned in 2002 after then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi met then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang on September 17 that year in the first-ever summit between the two countries, which do not maintain diplomatic ties. No summit has been held since 2004, when Koizumi and Kim met again in Pyongyang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday expressed her determination to achieve a \u201cbreakthrough\u201d in resolving the long-standing issue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24416,24419,8,17,5769,6821,1919,24420,6822,24417,33,1922,6212,24418,358,52],"class_list":["post-31783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-chief-cabinet-secretary-minoru-kihara","tag-hitomi-soga","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-japanese-government","tag-junichiro-koizumi","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-kim-jong-il","tag-megumi-yokota","tag-national-intelligence-bureau","tag-nihon","tag-north-korea","tag-pyongyang","tag-sakie-yokota","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}