The following article is a translation of a piece written by Masakatsu Ota that originally appeared in Kyodo News for circulation in Japan in August 2025. The original article can be found here. No copyright infringement is intended and NCNK claims no profit from the reposting of this article.
Aiming to Overcome a History of Discord and Mistrust
Searching for diplomatic solutions with starting from getting to know the other side
By Masakatsu Ota, Kyodo News
Washington XXX(Kyodo)--The morning rain had stopped, and the muggy heat of early summer suddenly spread in the air in Washington, the capital of the United States. Around 20 young people began to gather in a room in an office district less than a 10-minute walk from the "house of power," the White House.
After four or five people sat down at four rectangular tables, Keith Luse (aged 70), a former senior staff member of the U.S. Senate, began explaining the outline of the two-day special seminar at the front.
"NCNK's funding is from private foundations and organizations. We receive no funding from any government. And everything that happens over the two days is ‘off the record’."
American graduate students, young researchers, and NGO staff looked on intently. Young U.S. military officers were also among them, and they all listened intently to what Luse was saying.
Faulty Assumption
The seminar is called "Knowing North Korea." It is held once a year by the National Committee on North Korea (NCNK), an NGO, headed by Luse.
Participants attend intensive lectures by about 20 specialists. The lecturers are former high-ranking officials involved in North Korea policy, experts analyzing North Korea's nuclear issue and economic situation, and historians familiar with Sino-Russian and North Korean relations.
The lectures are diverse, but they have one main aim: to help young people who are expected to play active roles in the government, think tanks, and NGOs in the future understand the true nature of North Korea.
"North Korea places importance on consistency in the messages that the United States sends. On the other hand, successive US administrations have formulated policies based on a faulty assumption: that North Korea will eventually collapse." All participants’ eyes were on Luse.
Luse visited North Korea five times as an aide to the late U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 2004, Luse was shown a substance that North Korea described as "plutonium" at its nuclear facility in Yongbyon. He also engaged in behind-the-scenes communication with North Korean diplomats stationed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Drawing on this unique diplomatic experience, for over 10 years until his retirement in 2013, he observed the foreign policies of successive administrations from the legislative branch, which oversees the executive branch, in a cool-headed manner.
Late Mentor
The U.S. and North Korea fought in the Korean War, and even now have no diplomatic relations without a peace treaty. Their long history of discord has seen several near-conflict situations.
The first nuclear crisis in 1994, when the U.S. considered attacking the Yongbyon nuclear facility, and the 2017 crisis, when military tensions dramatically rose after a fierce exchange of accusations between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, are representative.
What is needed to overcome the roots of discord and mistrust? "First, get to know the other side," preaches Luse, who moved into the private sector and started "Knowing North Korea" eight years ago.
"Mr. Lugar was always positive about diplomatic engagement. That's because he was constantly concerned about the possibility of war and looked squarely at the U.S.-North Korea relationship from a humanitarian perspective."
This is how Luse remembers his late mentor. Lugar advised the 44th U.S. president, Barack Obama, on foreign policy when he was a senator. Though the two men were from different political parties, they worked hard together in a bipartisan spirit to align the national interests of the U.S. with the public interest of the international community.
Luse’s first visit to North Korea was in August 2002. He flew to Pyongyang at Lugar's instructions before U.S. Senate would vote about funding food aid to North Korea through the World Food Program (WFP). North Korea initially wanted to invite Lugar himself, but the Bush (Jr.) administration at the time denounced North Korea as an "axis of evil," making it difficult for a leading politician to visit North Korea.
"I can't go, but you should go. And keep going to North Korea," Lugar reportedly ordered Luse.
On his first visit to North Korea, Luse's visit included visits to a biscuit factory, a food distribution center, and orphanage, and the Foreign Ministry, among other locations and saw for himself the need for humanitarian aid.
He reported this to Lugar, which led to the budget being executed. His host on this visit was Choe Son-hui, the current Foreign Minister of North Korea.
Former American Soldier at Large
In December 2014, almost a year after leaving Congress, Luse got off the bullet train from Tokyo in Niigata. He then took a high-speed boat to Sado island. When he arrived at the hotel in the city from the port, a white man he was going to meet was waiting for him in the lobby.
The man was Charles Jenkins, who was a sergeant in the US Army in South Korea in 1965, but left the military and entered North Korea, where he married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese abduction victim.
Jenkins came to Japan in 2004, the year of the second Japan-North Korea summit meeting, and then moved to Soga's hometown of Sado, where he spent the rest of his life working in different roles, including at a souvenir shop in a tourist facility until his death in 2017 at the age of 77.
This was the first time Luse had met Jenkins. He talked slowly about the circumstances of his escape, his oppressive life in North Korea, how he met Soga and how they lived together. Initially, Jenkins started to talk slowly, but gradually his pace picked up. He was overcome with emotion in describing his deep appreciation to former Prime Minister Koizumi who was instrumental in Jenkins' departure from North Korea.
After the 90-minute meeting, Jenkins showed Luse around the site where his wife was abducted. "It was a very memorable trip," Luse recalled. He has also raised the abduction issue with North Korea every time he visits.
People of Japan, an ally of the U.S., strongly demand the resolution of this most important issue. That is one of the reasons why Luse intends to continue with "Knowing North Korea."
About the Author
Masakatsu Ota is a Senior and Editorial writer at Kyodo News, a position he has held since April 2009. He reports on a variety of nuclear issues, non-proliferation and the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Ota is also Visiting Professor of Waseda University and Nagasaki University as well as a regular commentator for Sunday Station of the TV Asahi, one of the most popular news programs in Japan.
Ota is the author of ten Japanese books on nuclear and security issues. He recently published Nichibei Kaku Domei (US-Japan ‘Nuclear’ Alliance) and Kaku no Daibunki (Great Divergence of Nuclear. Age)
Ota joined Kyodo in April 1992 as a staff writer. After joining Kyodo, he worked as a correspondent in Hiroshima, Osaka and Takamatsu. In 2001, he became a political correspondent, covering the Prime Minister’s office and the Foreign Ministry of Japan. From April 2003 until March 2007, Ota became a Washington correspondent. In Washington, he covered a range of issues related to U.S. politics, security and nuclear policies, as well as U.S.-Japan relations and non-proliferation issues.
Ota was awarded the Vaughn-Uyeda Prize in April 2007 for his investigations into the history of the U.S.-Japan security relationship, the history of the Second World War and his series of scoops on U.S. nuclear policy. He was also awarded the Peace Cooperative Journalist Fund Prize in December 2009 for his investigative reports into the secret U.S.-Japan nuclear deal during the Cold War.
Ota received a B.A. in political science from Waseda University. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship in 1999 and conducted research at the University of Maryland from 1999 to 2000. He received a Doctorate from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo in 2010 for his research on U.S.-Japan nuclear policy.