BEIJING - Kim Yo Jong, younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, indicated Monday that Pyongyang does not intend to hold summit talks with Japan if Tokyo seeks to resolve the issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals, according to state-run media.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told U.S. President Donald Trump during their meeting in Washington last week that she wants to hold talks with Kim Jong Un and received full support from the American leader toward an immediate solution of the matter.
The sister, who serves as a senior ruling party official in North Korea, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, "If the prime minister of Japan seeks to resolve its unilateral matter not recognized by us, our state leadership will have no intention to meet or sit face to face with her."
Kim Yo Jong said Japan should "break with its anachronistic practice and habit" to realize a meeting between her brother and Takaichi, but that Tokyo has "gone too far in the opposite direction."
"We have nothing to talk face to face to such a party still keen on obsolete thinking and impossible idea," she said, adding, "I don't want to see the prime minister of Japan coming to Pyongyang."
Japan officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s but suspects the isolated country's involvement in many more disappearances.
Five were repatriated in 2002, following then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's historic visit to Pyongyang. Since then, no tangible progress has been made in securing the return of the others.
Shortly after taking office in late October, Takaichi revealed that she had contacted North Korea about holding a summit. The Japanese government has said it is approaching North Korea through various channels.
North Korea, with which Japan has no diplomatic ties, maintains that the abductions issue has already been resolved.
In 2024, Kim Yo Jong suggested a visit by then Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Pyongyang would be possible if Japan did not make the abduction issue an obstacle. But she later rejected any further contact with Tokyo when it turned down her request to drop its insistence on the return of the abductees.
