North Korea has criticized Japan over a symposium it will host with the United Nations and other countries on Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese nationals, reiterating the issue has been resolved, state-run media said Wednesday.
"It has been completely, finally and irreversibly settled, thanks to our magnanimity and sincere efforts," Ri Pyong Dok, a researcher at the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Institute for Japan Studies, said in an article issued Tuesday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The online U.N. symposium co-sponsored by Japan, South Korea, the United States, Australia and the European Union will be held Thursday.
In Tokyo, Japan's top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno rejected North Korea's assertion that the abduction issue has been resolved.
"It is totally unacceptable," Matsuno, the chief Cabinet secretary who doubles as the minister in charge of the abduction issue, told a press conference. "We will make utmost efforts to realize the return of all abductees as soon as possible."
Matsuno is scheduled to deliver keynote remarks at the virtual event.
Japan officially lists 17 nationals as having been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s but suspects Pyongyang's involvement in many other disappearances.
While five people were returned in 2002, the other 12 remain unaccounted for and no tangible progress has been made since.
At an event in Tokyo in May, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed his eagerness to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to resolve the issue, saying he wants to establish senior-level bilateral negotiations to arrange a summit.
North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Pak Sang Gil said later that month if Japan "tries to make a new decision" and looks to improve the relationship, "there is no reason for the DPRK and Japan not to meet." DPRK stands for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
But Pak added that the abduction issue "had already been resolved," according to KCNA.
In Tuesday's article, Ri maintained that it is "a waste of time for Japan to persistently bring the unfeasible issue to the fore in the international arena."
Ri also argued that Japan's push to seek a resolution of the issue at the United Nations is also "little short of denying the stand of" Kishida, who has called for a Japan-North Korea summit "without preconditions."
"No matter how desperately Japan tries to internationalize the 'abduction issue,' it will not attract attention from anyone, except those pseudo-'human rights' experts," Ri wrote.
The article also said Japan's call for the repatriation of all of the abductees is "no more than a daydream like calling for bringing the dead back to life."
