SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister said Tuesday Pyongyang would reject “any contact or negotiations” with Japan, just a day after she said Tokyo’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had requested a summit with her brother.

Relations between the two countries are historically strained, including by a long-running kidnapping dispute and North Korea’s banned weapons programmes, but Kishida has recently expressed a desire to improve ties, which Pyongyang has hinted it is not opposed to.

Last year, Kishida said he was willing to meet Kim “without any conditions”, saying Tokyo was willing to resolve all issues, including the abduction by North Korean agents of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, which remains an emotive issue in Japan.

Kim Yo Jong — who is one of the regime’s key spokespeople — said on Monday that Kishida had requested a summit with Pyongyang’s leader, adding a meeting was unlikely without a policy shift by Tokyo.

But on Tuesday, citing Tokyo’s lack of “courage” for “new” North Korea-Japan relations, including over its stance on the abduction issue and North Korea’s military programmes, Kim Yo Jong said Pyongyang would reject any contact with Japan.

“Our government has clearly understood Japan’s attitude once again, and the conclusion is that we will disregard and refuse any contact or negotiations with the Japanese side,” she said, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.

“The North Korea-Japan summit meeting is not of interest to us,” she added.

Kishida said Monday that he was not aware of the earlier KCNA report, and did not directly comment on its contents, while calling top-level talks with North Korea “important”.

“For Japan-North Korea relations, top-level talks are important to resolve issues such as the abduction issue,” Kishida said in parliament, referring to kidnappings that took place in the 1970s and ’80s.

Kim Yo Jong has previously warned were Japan to remain “engrossed in the abduction issue that has no further settlement” then Kishida’s hopes of improving ties would not materialise.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had sent agents to kidnap 13 Japanese people in the 1970s and ’80s who were used to train spies in Japanese language and customs.

The abductions remain a potent and emotional issue in Japan and suspicions persist that many more were abducted than have been officially recognised.

AFP