A group of people trying to increase the number of "nuclear-free municipalities" in Japan is planning to visit North Korea in August to promote exchanges at a grassroots level and discuss the possibility of establishing a nuclear-free zone on the Korean Peninsula.
They hope their effort will rev up the effort to normalize ties between Japan and North Korea and bring the two countries closer together on a more personal level.
"The normalization talks seem stalled at the central government level," said Masaru Nishida, chairman of the Nuclear-Free Zone Citizens Network Japan. "If people directly talk with each other, they would know that everybody loves peace," he said.