Trilateral summit's statement to possibly include resolution of N. Korea's abduction: sources

The mother of Kim Young-nam, who was abducted by North Korea in 1977, left, meets with the father of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese girl kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s when she was 13, right, in the Songpa district of Seoul on May 16, 2006. Korea Times file

South Korea is in talks with China and Japan to try to include a clause calling for the resolution of North Korea's abduction and detention of South Korean nationals in a joint statement from their trilateral summit next week, multiple Seoul government sources said Friday.

President Yoon Suk Yeol will meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Seoul on Monday, making the resumption of a long-stalled trilateral summit after 4 and a half years. The trilateral summit, the ninth of its kind, will either adopt a joint statement or a joint declaration.

The sources said there is discussion about including a clause that calls for solving the issues of South Korean abductees, detainees and prisoners of war (POWs) held in North Korea.

"In the joint statements from the seventh and eighth trilateral summits in 2018 and 2019, respectively, the resolution of the issue of Japanese abductees was included," a government source said on the condition of anonymity, adding that there is a high possibility of including the issue of Japanese abductees as well as South Korean nationals.

The three countries included a hope for Japan and North Korea to communicate on the abduction issue in their joint declaration in December 2019 when the trilateral summit was last held in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.

In the 2018 trilateral summit in Tokyo, the joint declaration emphasized that the leaders of South Korea and China hoped for the prompt resolution of the abduction issue between North Korea and Japan through dialogue.

Currently, six South Koreans are being detained in North Korea, including three missionaries — Kim Jung-wook, Choi Chun-gil and Kim Kook-kie — whose whereabouts and fates are unknown.

Separately, 516 South Koreans have yet to return home among an estimated 3,835 people who were kidnapped by North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War, according to government data. At least 60,000 POWs are also estimated to have not come back home after being detained in North Korea. (Yonhap)