Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's dramatic trip to North Korea this week to win the release of two American journalists stands in sharp contrast to Japan's lack of an effective strategy to resolve the fate of its own citizens abducted by Pyongyang.
Clinton's trip, on the other hand, conjures up the two historic Pyongyang visits in 2002 by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that resulted in the repatriation of five abductees, the only ones out of a list of 17 to have come home.
On Thursday, a senior U.S. official contacted Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura to provide details of Clinton's Pyongyang trip, saying the ex-president called on Kim Jong Il to open an investigation into the yet-to-be-repatriated Japanese abducted by North Korean agents.