Tokyo Report | Diplomacy | East Asia

Will Japan-North Korea Relations Change?

The government of Sanae Takaichi may need to risk its political standing.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae meet with the family members of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea during Trump’s visit to Japan, Oct. 28, 2025.

North Korea’s first session of the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly was held on March 23. In his policy speech, Kim Jong Un, newly re-elected as president of the State Affairs Commission, sharply criticized both the United States and South Korea. Japan, however, was not mentioned at all.

This omission is telling. While Washington and Seoul are framed as direct threats, Japan – lacking offensive military capabilities – does not appear to be viewed as an urgent security concern by Pyongyang.

Personnel arrangements reinforce this point. The newly established Foreign Affairs Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly consists of nine members, including chair Kim Song Nam, director of the International Affairs Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and vice chair First Vice Premier Kim Tok Hun. Yet none is specifically responsible for Japanese affairs. This is consistent with the longstanding reality that only a small number of officials within North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs handle Japan-related issues.

By contrast, Japan devotes considerably greater attention to North Korea. The Northeast Asia Division of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs includes roughly 15 staff members focused on North Korean affairs. Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has repeatedly condemned North Korean missile tests and expressed her willingness to hold a summit with Pyongyang. In this sense, the relationship has often appeared one-sided – an “unrequited love” on Japan’s part.

On the same day as Kim Jong Un’s speech, his sister Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the Workers’ Party of Korea, issued a statement directed at Japan, her first such statement in two years. Referring to Takaichi’s stated willingness to hold a summit, she remarked, “It is not a problem to be realized just because Japan wishes or decides to do so,” and added that North Korea’s leadership has “no intention to meet or face” a Japanese prime minister seeking to resolve “unilateral agendas” that Pyongyang does not recognize.

She went further, suggesting that Japan would need to abandon what she described as “anachronistic practices and habits” before any meeting could take place. While prefacing her remarks as a “thoroughly personal position,” she concluded bluntly: “I do not want to see the spectacle of the Japanese prime minister coming to Pyongyang.”

Rather than signaling an opening, this statement should be understood as reiterating North Korea’s established position. As in its messaging toward the United States, Pyongyang continues to place the burden of change on the other side. The reference to a “personal position” allows some flexibility in tone, but the substance of the message is clear: any progress would require a shift in Japan’s policy.

This leaves the initiative with Tokyo. Whether the........

© The Diplomat