Clinton considers meeting families of Japanese abducted by N. Korea: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will
visit Tokyo next week, is considering meeting with the families of Japanese
citizens abducted decades ago to North Korea, the State Department said Monday.
Clinton "would obviously take a look at a proposal from the government of Japan,"
spokesman Robert Wood said in a daily news briefing, referring to a report that
the Japanese government is arranging a meeting between the visiting Clinton and
the families.
The kidnapping issue is a major stumbling block in the six-party talks aimed at
dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program. North Korea has repeatedly
threatened to oust Tokyo from the talks, citing Japan's refusal to provide energy
aid under a multilateral deal.
Japan has said it will not provide the 200,000 tons of heavy fuel oil unless the
North explains fully the fate of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean
agents in the 1970s and '80s to teach spies Japanese language and culture.
North Korea sent back five of the 13 abductees soon after Japan's then-Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2002, and it said the rest are
dead. Japan, however, says several more are still alive.
Wood said Washington "remains very concerned about the abductees."
"We've made that case, made that point very clearly to the North Koreans in the
past," he said.
"We'll continue to do so."
To show his resolution to raise the human rights issue with North Korea,
then-U.S. President George W. Bush in 2006 met with the mother of one of the
abductees, Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977 at 13.
The Bush administration had been under fire for ignoring human rights in North
Korea to focus on the North's denuclearization.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)