ABSTRACT
Normalization talks between North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) and Japan commenced in January 1991. However, these talks broke down during the eighth round in November 1992, only resuming about seven and a half years later in April 2000. The tenth and eleventh rounds of normalization talks were held in August and October 2000, respectively. The first summit was held in Pyongyang in September 2002, which was followed by the twelfth round of normalization talks in October 2002. A second summit was held in May 2004. Since then, the two countries have staged three more rounds of normalization talks in February 2006, March 2007, and September 2007. Thus, sixteen years have passed since normalization talks first began-that far exceeds the thirteen years of talks before the diplomatic normalization between South Korea (the Republic of Korea, or ROK) and Japan in 1965.
