Abe to keep pressuring N. Korea on abductions

NIIGATA (Kyodo) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meeting Sunday with the five repatriated abductees, promised Sunday to continue pressing North Korea on the abduction issue.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomes the five repatriated abductees, (from left) Yasushi Chimura, his wife Fukie, Hitomi Soga, and Yukiko Hasuike and her husband Kaoru, to a meeting at a hotel in Niigata on Sunday. KYODO PHOTO

During upcoming talks with North Korea in a bilateral working group under the six-party nuclear talks, Japan will reiterate its demand that Pyongyang allow all abduction victims to return home, Abe told Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike, Yasushi and Fukie Chimura, and Hitomi Soga.

Abe said in the meeting at a Niigata hotel that the government will urge Pyongyang to investigate the fates of other missing Japanese whose families believe may have been kidnapped by North Korean agents.

Japan officially claims that 17 people, including the five repatriated abductees, were taken by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but some believe that many more have also been abducted by Pyongyang to provide its spies with language training.

Abe also said Japan will demand that North Korea hand over two former intelligence officials whom Japanese police have recently put on the international wanted list on suspicion of having instructed an operative to abduct the Hasuikes in 1978.

"It is a matter of course for us to demand the handover" of the suspects, Abe told reporters after the meeting.

The meeting was apparently aimed at dispelling concerns that the abduction issue -- a matter of high concern in Japan -- may be sidelined as talks to denuclearize North Korea proceed.

Abe clarified Japan's position in the runup to the expected launch by mid-March of the working group on normalizing Japan-North Korean relations. Japan plans to take up the abductions issue at the working group.

It is the first time Abe has met with the five -- who returned to Japan in 2002 after North Korea admitted to kidnapping them and eight others -- since becoming prime minister in September. They last met in February 2004, when Abe was secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party.

The Hasuikes, Chimuras and Soga, who were abducted by North Korean agents in three separate cases in 1978 from Niigata and Fukui prefectures, returned to Japan in October 2002 after then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made a landmark visit to Pyongyang. Abe accompanied Koizumi on the visit as deputy chief Cabinet secretary.

During Koizumi's visit, North Korea admitted to abducting 13 Japanese and then returned the five. It said the other eight were dead -- a claim disputed by their families and the Japanese government. Pyongyang maintains the issue has been resolved.

Abe maintains a policy of seeking progress in resolving the abduction issue before joining energy aid to be provided to North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang taking steps to abandon its nuclear program under an agreement in the Feb. 8-13 six-party talks that also included China, South Korea, Russia and the United States.