Japan to push North Korea on abductions

Amid cries of outrage in the media, Japan today said it will push North Korea to allow several people abducted by North Korean spies decades ago to return home as soon as possible and to conduct a thorough investigation into why they were taken.

Reversing years of angry denials, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il yesterday admitted in a summit with Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that the spies had abducted a dozen or so Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s.

He confirmed that at least four were still alive, but that most of the others were dead.

Shinzo Abe, a senior administration official who accompanied Mr Koizumi to Pyongyang for the unprecedented summit, vowed to keep pressure on North Korea during a meeting with relatives of the abduction victims this morning.

Mr Koizumi, who said he “strongly protested” the abductions during his summit talks with Kim, was to meet with the families at his official residence next week.

“We must take this matter very seriously,” Mr Abe said.

Though Kim’s confession paves the way for Japan and North Korea to begin the process of establishing diplomatic relations, Misako Kaji, Mr Koizumi’s spokeswoman, stressed that Tokyo does not consider the issue closed.

“We want to pursue the issue of responsibility,” she said. “All we confirmed yesterday was whether the missing were alive or dead.”

Many of the families also said they will not be satisfied until their relatives are safely home or until the details of what happened to them are fully disclosed.

“I don’t feel relieved at all,” said Tamotsu Chimura, whose son, Yasushi, disappeared with fiance Fukie Hamamoto on July 7, 1978 after dining at a seaside restaurant.

Though Yasushi was among the four confirmed alive, his father said the lack of other information has only deepened his grief.

“It would almost have been better to have been told all of the missing were dead,” Mr Chimura said.

A North Korean diplomatic official, quoted by the country’s state-run media, announced yesterday that Pyongyang is willing to assist survivors who want to return home, but it remains unclear whether and how this might happen.

Japanese media reacted with a mixture of shock, anger and scepticism whether North Korea would keep its word.

Kim’s surprising admission of the abductions was bannered on the front-pages of all major newspapers, and dominated television news programmes.

“A hard-to-forgive brutal terrorist state,” said the headline of an editorial in the Mainichi Shimbun, one of Japan’s major dailies.

But the newspaper also acknowledged that North Korea took a big step by admitting the kidnappings.

“North Korea needs to change and become a country that can be trusted by the international community,” it said. “It needs to carry out its promises in detail. Everything starts from here.”