Kim meets Yokota's parents, separately says she saw possible abductees+

TOKYO, July 22 Kyodo -
Former North Korean agent Kim Hyon Hui met Wednesday with the parents of Megumi
Yokota, one of the Japanese abducted by Pyongyang, while telling family members
of another abductee that she saw several people in North Korea who a Japanese
organization suspects were abducted by the North while she was still in the
country.
The closed meeting between the 48-year-old Kim and Shigeru Yokota, 77, and his
wife Sakie, 74, began with greetings and their conversation centered on
Megumi's life in North Korea, according to sources close to the matter.
Yokota's twin brothers, Takuya and Tetsuya, both 41, were also there.
The Yokotas are expected to hold a press conference Thursday morning about
their first meeting with Kim, which was held at the summer house owned by
former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture.
The meeting lasted about three hours and 40 minutes.
Yokota was abducted in 1977 at the age of 13 on her way home from school.
Pyongyang claims Yokota died in North Korea, but her family rejects the claim
and believes she is still alive.
The Japanese government also dismisses Pyongyang's claim about Yokota and no
major breakthrough has been achieved on the abduction issue between Japan and
North Korea.
Japan seeks to normalize relations with North Korea through a comprehensive
resolution of the outstanding issues of abduction and North Korea's nuclear and
missile developments.
Kim reportedly had met Yokota while undergoing training as an agent. Among the
Japanese abduction victims, Yokota has become a symbolic figure.
Prior to meeting with Kim, the Yokotas said they hope the meeting would provide
them with new information on abductees and serve as another step in resolving
the abduction issue.
''I feel overwhelmed because we're finally meeting (with Kim),'' Sakie told
reporters in Shibata, Niigata Prefecture, before leaving for Karuizawa. ''I
want to hear everything from her.''
Shigeru, who had long served as the head of a group of relatives of Japanese
abductees to the North, said, ''She may tell us something we'll hear for the
first time so I hope this will help lead to the discovery (of the abductees).''
Meanwhile, Kim told Shigeo Iizuka, the 72-year-old brother of another abductee
Yaeko Taguchi, and her 33-year-old son Koichiro Iizuka that she saw some of the
faces that appear on a poster of possible abductees, Koichiro told reporters
after the two met with Kim on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Shigeo, who heads the abductee families' group and the National Association for
the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, and Koichiro gave the poster
made by the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to
North Korea to Kim in March last year when the three met for the first time in
Busan, South Korea.
Kim said she has passed on the information to the Japanese government while not
specifying details such as the number of possible abductees, according to
Koichiro.
In Seoul on Wednesday, the head of a South Korean group of families of South
Korean abduction victims said he has been told by a source close to North
Korean affairs that Taguchi is still alive in the North Korean capital.
Choi Song Yong told Kyodo News that he heard from the source that Taguchi, who
was abducted in 1978 and said by Pyongyang to have died in 1986, is married to
a South Korean abducted by the North and currently living in an apartment in
the Manggyongdae district in the capital city.
Choi has helped several South Koreans abducted by Pyongyang get out of the
North and is said to have contacts close to North Korean authorities.
Pyongyang claims Taguchi, who was abducted by the North at age 22, married
another Japanese abductee Tadaaki Hara in 1984 after her abduction to North
Korea and died in a traffic accident in 1986.
In the two-day meeting, Kim cooked Korean food together with Koichiro and spoke
for hours with the Iizukas before leaving, after promising another meeting in
the future, he said.
Kim, who was sentenced to death in South Korea over the fatal 1987 bombing of a
South Korean passenger jet, before being pardoned and freed, arrived Tuesday in
Japan on a Japanese-government chartered flight for a four-day visit. Tokyo
gave her a special permit for entry.
Kim has never returned to North Korea since the bombing.
She reportedly learned Japanese language and culture from Taguchi.
In Tuesday's meeting with Shigeo and Koichiro, Kim repeatedly said she believes
Taguchi is still alive and that she will come back home. Pyongyang claims she
died in a traffic accident in 1986.
Tokyo has said at least 17 Japanese were abducted to North Korea in the late
1970s and early 1980s. Five of them were repatriated in 2002 but the
whereabouts of the others remain disputed.
==Kyodo
2010-07-22 00:54:17


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