The row over nuclear issue between N. Korea and IAEA ends, as it seems, with the Beijing summit. However, Japan will continue with its economic sanctions at least for the next six months as imports and ship entering Japanese boundary will remain banned.
Yes, the rift that started between two with nuclear test and latter intensified with N. Korean missile tests which were test fired in the Sea of Japan. The altercations don’t seem to end as Japan is suspicious of N. Korean ambitions to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. However, this is a big jolt to trade which amounted approximately to $180 million in 2005, but now totally lingers since N. Korean nuclear test.
Secondly, Japan wry N. Korea for not releasing abducted Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These prisoners are charged to train spies. Are these sanctions meant only due to this meager issue of abduction involving 13 Japanese people? Whereas, N. Korea has already sent back five and said that eight of them are dead.
Well, there are other issues than this meager one. Particularly when Japan never considered N. Korea as a palpable threat and its media portrayed N. Korea as simply a basket case despite the fact that Kim Jong II test-fired missiles over Japan. This is more or less a covert defiance to US move.
As N. Korea has agreed to dismantle all its nuclear reactors by the end of this year and if it keeps its words, defying its old image, it’s not worth continuing the standoff on the meager issues of abduction or anything like that.
