Kim Yo Jong, North Korea’s senior official and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said Monday that a summit with Japan will not take place unless Tokyo changes what she described as its “anachronistic” approach. Her statement came after Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters last week that she had informed U.S. President Donald Trump during a Washington meeting that she had “a very strong desire” to meet Kim Jong Un.
In her latest remarks carried by North Korean state media, Kim Yo Jong framed any planned meeting as something that depends on Japan first “be determined to break with its anachronistic practice and habit.” She said, “I don’t want to see the prime minister of Japan coming to Pyongyang,” adding that her rejection was “just my personal position,” a formulation that suggested she was pressing Japan toward concessions rather than closing the door permanently.
Takaichi’s comments followed the earlier reporting and diplomatic engagement that put a potential North Korea-Japan summit back on the radar. According to the account, Takaichi said Trump expressed support for the immediate resolution of the abductees’ cases and indicated he would “provide cooperation in various ways” related to meeting Kim Jong Un.
Kim Yo Jong did not spell out in Monday’s statement what Japan’s “anachronistic practice and habit” refers to. However, the statement tracked a position she previously set out in 2024, when North Korea said acceptance of a reported offer for a meeting by one of Takaichi’s predecessors would depend on Japan tolerating the North’s nuclear weapons program and ignoring the past abductions of Japanese nationals. The meeting in that earlier case never occurred.
The timing and wording of Kim Yo Jong’s message also reflected the unresolved status of the abduction issue between the two countries. After years of denial, North Korea acknowledged in a 2002 summit between Kim Jong Il and then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that its agents kidnapped 13 Japanese, and it allowed five to return to Japan. Japan has said it believes more people were abducted and that some could still be alive.
Observers cited by the report said North Korea may be aiming to improve ties with Japan in a way that could widen divisions between the United States and its allies, while Tokyo has sought to address the abduction cases. The chances of a summit also appear limited by North Korea’s broader negotiating posture: the report said North Korea has refused to return to diplomacy with the U.S. and South Korea since 2019, and that Trump has repeatedly said he wants to resume dialogue with Kim, although Kim indicated talks would require the U.S. to drop “its delusional obsession with denuclearization.”