Former N. Korean terrorist meets Japanese abductee's kin

BUSAN, March 11 (Yonhap) -- Kim Hyun-hui, once a North Korean terrorist and now a housewife living in South Korea, held a long-awaited meeting Wednesday with the family of a Japanese woman kidnapped by the communist nation in the 1970s, an event expected to rekindle public interest in the abduction issue.

Kim proposed the meeting with the elder brother and the son of Yaeko Taguchi,
whom Pyongyang abducted in 1978 to train its spies. Kim said Taguchi was her
Japanese language instructor.
No immediate breakthrough is expected, however, in efforts to confirm the fate of
Taguchi, who North Korea claims died in 1987, but Japanese authorities believe
Wednesday's meeting will help draw international attention to the biggest
sticking point in Tokyo's relations with Pyongyang.
It was the first time that Kim, who was convicted of planting a bomb on a South
Korean airliner in 1987 that killed all 115 people on board but later pardoned,
appeared for a public event since 1991.
Taguchi is one of 17 Japanese citizens whom Tokyo says were abducted by North
Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2002, the North acknowledged abducting
only 13 Japanese citizens and allowed five of them to return home, saying the
others had died.
Tokyo has demanded that Pyongyang account for all of the abductees, setting it as
a precondition for the normalization of diplomatic ties and the delivery of its
share of energy aid promised under a six-nation deal.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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