Japan lost track of its key North Korean contact

A North Korean secret negotiator – with direct connections to the Pyongyang leadership and behind major bilateral developments over the past two decades – lost contact with Tokyo several years ago.

Nikkei Asia newspaper quoted sources as saying that this employee was called “Mr. Y” in the Japanese intelligence community. He once told contacts in Tokyo that he was ill. Some government sources say Japan and North Korea have lost a “behind-the-scenes negotiation channel”.

Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic relations, and efforts to normalize relations have become strained because of the past abductions of Japanese citizens and Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a meeting with key officials in Pyongyang. Photo: KCNA

According to sources, “Mr. Y” is known to be a subordinate of “Mr. X” – a senior North Korean security official who paved the way for a first-ever bilateral summit. was held in 2002 between the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Along with “Mr. X”, this liaison officer took part in negotiations regarding Mr. Koizumi’s 2002 visit to North Korea. He is also in charge of negotiating a 2014 bilateral agreement signed in Stockholm on negotiating principles aimed at addressing kidnapping in the past.

In 2014, he informed Japan that two men missing in the late 1970s were still living in North Korea. These two, Minoru Tanaka, went missing at the age of 28 after boarding a plane to Vienna at Narita Airport, and Tatsumitsu Kaneda working at the same ramen shop as Tanaka. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has repeatedly stated that Tanaka has never entered North Korea.

Japan officially lists 17 people kidnapped by North Korea, of which five were repatriated after the landmark 2002 summit in which leader Kim Jong-il admitted North Korea kidnapped. Japanese citizenship.

“Mr. Y” also acts as the mediator for a secret meeting in Mongolia in 2014 between Mr. Shigeru Yokota and Ms. Sakie Yokota, 85, the parents of the kidnapping victim Megumi Yokota and her niece. Megumi Kim Eun-gyong.

Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped in 1977 at the age of 13, was on her way home from school. She has become the symbol of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea.

Along with the families of the other kidnapped people, Sakie Yokota met with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga last week to call for the early repatriation of their loved ones ahead of scheduled talks between the prime minister and US President Joe Biden. took place on April 16 in Washington.

The unidentified employee, the sources said, succeeded “Mr. X” about 10 years ago, and entered into negotiations with Japan in a third country such as China and Mongolia.

Fluent in Japanese, he communicated with Japanese officials on his anti-eavesdropping cell phone. He is believed to have had a disease related to the brain or circulatory system, but may have been fired amid negotiations between Japan and North Korea stalled.

Prime Minister Suga, who served as a kidnapping minister under his predecessor Shinzo Abe, said after taking office last September that he was ready to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong Il’s son without prerequisites.

But now, Mr. Suga is struggling to find a new negotiating channel when Pyongyang closes its border to the COVID-19 pandemic prevention.

What appears to be the only door of opportunity now closed after North Korea decided not to participate in the Tokyo Olympics this summer, also citing the need to prevent viral infections.

President Suga’s office declined to comment.

Mr. Song Il-ho is the Korean Ambassador in charge of negotiating the normalization of relations with Japan. However, the Japanese government source said he was not one of the secret negotiators with more decision-making power.