Japan saw a lot of action with North Korea during its Silver Week holidays — not because there was significant progress, but because after months of inactivity between the two countries, there were suddenly many things happening all at once. There was the Japanese rescue of North Korean sailors at sea, Tokyo’s attempt to trigger political-level dialogue with a visiting North Korean minister, reports of potential asylum seeking by two North Korean athletes, North Korean missile launches and a trilateral Japan-South Korea-United States foreign ministers’ meeting that addressed issues involving North Korea, the secretive state. Each represented a different facet of Japan’s policy toward North Korea, highlighting the multiple layers of a troubled relationship in which practical cooperation, political engagement, humanitarian issues and security challenges exist in parallel.
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