The son of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea in the 1970s was among the nine defectors who were recently deported from Laos back to the North, reports said Thursday.
Citing unnamed diplomatic sources, Donga Ilbo newspaper reported that the group included the 23-year-old son of Kyoko Matsumoto, who went missing at 29 on her way to a knitting class near her home in Tottori in western Japan in September 1977.
If it proves true, it will likely bring far-reaching repercussions given global calls against the repatriation of North Korean refugees and Japan’s fresh drive to resolve the long-festering abduction issue.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged the report but has no relevant information to provide, spokesperson Cho Tai-young said at a media briefing.
Tokyo’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said his government was working to verify the report through diplomatic channels.
“We are making efforts to collect and analyze information on all abduction victims,” he told reporters.
The seven North Korean men and two women aged between 15 and 23 were caught trying to reach the South Korean Embassy in Vientiane on May 10.
Vientiane agreed to hand them over to Seoul diplomats on May 20 but the North Korean Embassy there stepped in and took them to China late Monday and then to their homeland Tuesday, diplomatic sources said.
The Foreign Ministry here said it has already appealed to top U.N. human rights and refugee officials over the severe punishment in store back home for the defectors, Cho said.
The unusually swift repatriation, coupled with their unprecedented use of flights, has spawned a rash of speculation about the young asylum seekers’ identity.
Matsumoto is one of the 17 abductees formally acknowledged by the Japanese government. It added her to its official abductees list in 2006 but Pyongyang has denied kidnapping her.
Now 65, she was reportedly married and still lives in the reclusive country.
Since taking office in December, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has displayed his resolve to tackle the issue.
Early this month, he sent one of his advisers specialized in North Korea affairs to Pyongyang for a three-day stay in an apparent attempt to reopen talks on the abductees issue.
Isao Iijima was a policy secretary to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and accompanied him on his two trips to the North in 2002 and 2004.
The late autocrat Kim Jong-il admitted to Koizumi during a 2002 landmark summit that North Korean agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. Five of them were returned later that year.
Pyongyang claims the eight others have died, while Tokyo has been demanding more information on them and others, who are believed to be taken to the communist country to teach language and customs to spies.
By Shin Hyon-hee (
heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
