N. Korea urges Japan to work past wrongdoings

By Yi Whan-woo

North Korea's state media called on Japan to settle its past wrongdoings, Friday, as a pre-condition to opening dialogue with Pyongyang.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, also urged Tokyo to shift away from its hostile policy toward Pyongyang, or "nothing can be expected" in their relations.

The Rodong Simun reiterated the regime's demand for Japan to sincerely apologize for its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

This time, however, North Korea appears to be trying to gain diplomatic leverage with Japan, which has been fretting about being isolated amid Pyongyang's reconciliation with other stakeholders in the peninsula.

Diplomatic sources speculate Pyongyang may ask for economic assistance in its possible dialogue with Tokyo, in the form of compensation for colonization.

"Japan must face history in an earnest and responsible manner and also bid farewell to its anachronistic, hostile policy toward the North, if it wants to be at Pyongyang's doorstep," the Rodong Simun said in an editorial, titled "You can't progress into the future by covering up past crimes."

"Settling past wrongdoings is the most basic building block and the foremost pre-condition in improving North Korea-Japan relations. Nothing can be expected unless Japan's policy of hostility changes into that of goodwill and friendship," it said.

The newspaper refuted Japan's demand that the North should cooperate and help resolve issues of missing Japanese citizens who are believed to have been abducted by North Korean agents starting in 1977.

"We are the one who should scold Japan when it comes to issues on abductees," it said, referring to forced labor, military conscription and sex slavery committed during the Japanese colonial rule. "It's our people who were most victimized by Japan's state-sponsored abduction, terror and other crimes."

It criticized Japan as an "unwelcomed guest" that wants to be invited in although it is distrustful and hostile toward its neighbor.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the only leader who still has no plan to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un among countries with a stake in the North's denuclearization.

The young despot has held summits with President Moon Jae-in, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, earlier this year. He also received an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Russia in September.

North Korea and Japan have not established relations since the North was founded in 1948.

They had three rounds of normalization talks in the 2000s but these failed.

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