Kidnapped Japanese return after 25 years

Five Japanese kidnapped 25 years ago by North Korean spies returned today in the country’s most emotional homecoming since the end of the Second World War.

Stepping off the plane from Pyongyang in crisp suits and dresses, they clung to each other and burst into tears and then broad smiles as they hugged relatives waiting for them.

The family members waiting for them were filled with a mixture of excitement and unease.

"Today I’m going to be very cheerful to welcome her and forget the past just for now," said Yuko Hamamoto, brother of returnee Fukie Hamamoto.

She and her then-fiancee Yasushi Chimura were grabbed, wrapped in bags and whisked away in North Korean boats as they strolled along a secluded Japanese beach in 1978, when both were just 23-years-old.

Now married, they are among the five returnees who are the only known survivors of at least 13 people abducted by the North in the 1970s and early 80s to train its spies in the Japanese language and culture.

Tempering the jubilation about their return, however, was renewed anxiety about the fate of eight other abductees whom North Korea says died in the interim years, under what many Japanese deem mysterious circumstances.

"I’m very happy about the development. But this does not close the abduction issues," chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said.

Suspicion also runs high because the abductees, now all in their 40s, are only allowed to stay a week or two and forbidden to bring their children. Calling the children hostages, family members and government officials have said the abductees will not speak openly about North Korea for fear of retribution.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi helped broker the homecoming through his unprecedented summit last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. But he has since faced widespread Japanese anger over the North’s explanation of the others’ fate.