KIDNAPPING BY NORTH KOREA AND DIPLOMACY.

KIDNAPPING BY NORTH KOREA AND DIPLOMACY. As described in this wikipedia article, from 1977 to 1983, North Korea kidnapped Japanese citizens in Japan for the purpose of having them teach Japanese to North Korean spies. North Korea now admits to thirteen kidnapings; there may have been eighty. One of the victims was a 13 year old girl. Japan has been trying to retrieve the victims for a long time. David Pilling, in an article in the Financial Times on December 13, 2007, says that Japan’s new prime minister “places progress on ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons above the emotional, but less strategically vital, issue of a dozen or so ‘disappeared’ citizens.” Diplomatic considerations have long been predominant. Pilling says that, “In the interests of smooth relations with Pyongyang, the foreign ministry for years suppressed evidence of kidnappings, occasionally pointing out that many Americans thought they had been abducted by aliens.”