Besides the fact that North Korea gets to put off detailing its nuclear weapons holdings, today's agreement, which is largely drawing muted cheers, also leaves Japan in the lurch. The Asia Times' Ralph Cossa explained the Japanese dilemma just yesterday:
Intertwined in all the above is the North Korea-Japan normalization process, which both are committed to making "sincere efforts" to address. A dispute over "full accounting" regarding Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s has resulted in a bilateral stalemate.
Pyongyang acknowledged the kidnappings in 2002 but then claimed the issue was "settled" (with the return of five abductees and the announcement that eight others had died). Tokyo disagrees: it refutes both the accounting of how the eight died and believes there are more abductees still not acknowledged or accounted for. More importantly for Washington, Tokyo believes it has a commitment from Bush that the US will not remove North Korea from the terrorist sponsors list until there has been "progress" in resolving this dispute. Suspicions in Japan about Washington's perceived over-eagerness to accommodate Pyongyang continue to make this a sensitive alliance issue.
As a result, the agreement in early June 2008 by Pyongyang to "reinvestigate the abduction issue" is seen as a major step forward (and a diplomatic victory of sorts for Hill), even if it comes with no promise of actually providing more information, much less more abductees.
The mere fact that Pyongyang has reopened discussions constitutes some form of "progress", thus allowing Japan to begrudgingly endorse the removal of Pyongyang from the state sponsors list, provided there really is a "complete and correct declaration".
Of course, the reporter underestimated the desperation of the Bushies to get a deal, and the power of China to force one. Thus, as the New York Times explains today:
Japanese politicians like former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe complained this week that the United States should not remove North Korea from the terrorism list until there is a full accounting of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970’s. Doing so would harm relations between Tokyo and Washington, Mr. Abe warned.
On Wednesday, President Bush talked to Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda by telephone and assured him that he had not forgotten about the abductees. And in a nod to Japan in his comments Thursday, Mr. Bush said the United States would “never forget” the abductions of Japanese citizens.
On Thursday, Mr. Fukuda, a moderate, rejected criticism inside Japan that Tokyo now had little leverage over Pyongyang because of its removal from the terrorism list. He said working with the United States “will be really necessary to realize the denuclearization and, at the same time, pave the way for solving the abduction issue, which is a major task for our country.”
And Mr. Bush said in his brief presser today:
The other thing I want to assure our friends in Japan is that this process will not leave behind -- leave them behind on the abduction issue. The United States takes the abduction issue very seriously. We expect the North Koreans to solve this issue in a positive way for the Japanese. There's a lot of folks in Japan that are deeply concerned about what took place. I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office. It was a heart-wrenching moment to listen to the mother talk about what it was like to lose her daughter. And it is important for the Japanese people to know that the United States will not abandon our strong ally and friend when it comes to helping resolve that issue.
in other words, the U.S. and Japan both caved on key issues in order to get a deal, which is of questionable value from the standpoint of what's supposedly the most important issue: nuclear weapons. Confused yet?
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
