North Korea and Japan Relations

Read an interesting article on CNN today North Korea: We don’t want Japan at Nuclear Talk.

Thought I might provide some context. One of the biggest sticking points is over Japanese citizens that were kidnapped and taken to North Korea. They were forced to provide cultural information so that North Korea would be better able to train spies.

Return after 28 years

The crazy thing is that some of these people were kidnapped taken while at the beach!! Literally a N. Korean submarine would pop up, commandos would grab as many people as possible and then submerge! It is believe that up to 500 people have been kidnapped… full disclosure by N. Korea has not yet occurred.

Here are a few articles for more insight:

Boy Kidnapper by Regime 28 years Ago Meets his Mother

North Korea’s Kidnap Victims Return Home After 25 years

Why North Koreans were Kidnappers

Wikipedia has a great section as well:

North Korean Abductions of Japanese