Families of Japanese abductees slam planned N. Korea talks

TOKYO -- The families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago denounced on Thursday their government's desire to establish diplomatic ties with the communist nation, saying it can't be trusted.

Pyongyang's admission last month to Japan's long-held claim that it had kidnapped Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s was a condition Tokyo had set for resuming normalization talks for the first time in two years.

But public opinion against talks has grown amid shock over reports that eight of the 13 victims died in North Korea, some in what appeared to be suspicious circumstances.

"There is no need for normalization," said Sakie Yokota, whose daughter, Megumi, was abducted. "North Korea isn't even capable of being a negotiating partner yet."

No diplomatic relations

Japan and North Korea have never had diplomatic relations. Normalization talks that began in 1991 fell apart two years ago, primarily over Japan's suspicion of the kidnappings and Pyongyang's demands that Japan pay compensation for its brutal 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

On Thursday, the abductees' families demanded their loved ones return to Japan -- despite their videotaped claims that they are happy and do not want to come home.

"My position has always been that if she is alive, give her back. Bring her home immediately," said Yuko Hamamoto, the older brother of Fukie Hamamoto, who went missing from a beach 24 years ago and was found to be among the survivors.

"She was speaking following a North Korean script. She can't say what she wants to say," he told reporters.

A Japanese government mission brought back the videotape earlier this week after a 4-day investigation that followed a historic meeting last month between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

The North said it had abducted the Japanese to train its spies in Japanese language and customs, an admission Tokyo hoped would pave the way for normalization talks to help Japan learn more about the North's suspected nuclear weapons and missile development programs.

But distrust of the North's account of what happened to the kidnap victims threatens to derail negotiations.

Of the eight who died, the ashes of only one has returned home. The remains of the rest were washed away in floods or are missing, according to Pyongyang's report.

One victim, Rumiko Masumoto, reportedly died of heart disease in 1981 although she was only 27. Two others -- Keiko Arimoto and Toru Ishioka -- were married in North Korea and had a baby daughter. The report said all three died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the fumes of a coal stove on Nov. 4, 1988 -- two months after a letter sent by Ishioka was smuggled out of North Korea and delivered to his family in Japan.

One other died of illness, while the rest died from suicide, car accidents or drowning, according to t he report.