Japan's former top negotiator with North Korea, Hitoshi Tanaka, will become a guest professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy of the University of Tokyo in April, school officials said Tuesday.
Tanaka, 59, had been responsible for secret negotiations that paved the way for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's historic trip to Pyongyang in September 2002 and summit with Kim Jong Il.
During his two-year stint, Tanaka will lecture on Japan's foreign policy, the officials said.
Tanaka was director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the time of Koizumi's trip.
He reportedly has his own connections with North Korea and played a key role in working out the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration, which Koizumi and Kim signed during their 2002 summit.
Tanaka stepped down last August as deputy foreign minister and subsequently became a senior fellow at the Japan Center for International Exchange, a nonprofit group.
Relatives of Japanese kidnapped by Pyongyang have criticized Tanaka for what they see as his soft negotiating stance, prioritizing efforts to normalize diplomatic ties over resolving the abduction dispute.