Abductees tell North Korea they want to stay in Japan

NIIGATA, Japan -- Five Japanese kidnapped by North Korea decades ago agreed Wednesday to make clear to Pyongyang that they are willingly staying in the land of their birth.

North Korea alleges the abductees, who returned in October for what was to have been a two-week visit, are being kept in Japan against their wishes. Pyongyang is thus refusing to comply with Tokyo's demands that it send their seven children and the American husband of one abductee to Japan.

The five abductees hope to prompt North Korea to allow their families to leave by taking a firm stand, the brother of one abductee said.

"They were worried about how their remarks and actions could affect their families they left behind in North Korea," said Toru Hasuike. "But now they want to take action that can possibly move things forward."

Hasuike's younger brother, Kaoru, was abducted off a Japanese beach by North Korean agents 24 years ago. He is now in Japan with his wife and fellow abductee, Yukiko.

Lounging on sofas, the five, all now in their 40s, chatted over tea and cake about the hometowns they have been visiting for the first time in decades. All five wore lapel pins bearing the image of North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung.

Three-day gathering

The three-day gathering is providing the five with a rare chance to talk with one another in private for long hours. While the five didn't know one another in the North, they have spoken by telephone since returning to Japan.

The meeting also allows the five to console Hitomi Soga, who left her American husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, in Pyongyang. The other abductees are couples and had to leave children in North Korea.

Reversing years of denial, North Korea admitted in September it kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.

The North says only five, the ones now in Japan, are alive and the eight others died.

The abductees' return was initially applauded as a step toward normalizing relations between Japan and North Korea, but Japanese public opinion soon soured.

over the abductions and the North's later admission that it has been secretly developing nuclear weapons. Talks to establish diplomatic relations ran aground in late October.

The abductees are to meet Thursday with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. He said he will reassure them the government won't move ahead with talks on normalizing relations with North Korea until the safety of their children has been guaranteed.