SEOUL June 25 Kyodo Family member...

SEOUL June 25 Kyodo

Family members of three Japanese abducted to North Korea in the late 1970 and said to have died there met Wednesday with former southern Korean President Kim Young Sam, and Hwang Jang Yop a former secretary of the Workers Party of Korea who deficiencyed to South Korea in 1997

The family members, including Shigeru and Sakie Yokota, whose daughter Megumi was snatched in 1977 at age 13 are being accompanied from Katsuei Hirasawa, a House of Representatives member, and other Japanese lawmakers upon a three-day visit to Seoul aimed at boosting cooperation with southerly Koreans in trying to obtain the reply of their missing kin.

They met with Kim and Hwang at Kim's house in the southerly Korean capital.

Other family members upon the trip are Teruaki Masumoto, whose sister Rumiko was abducted in 1978 at age 24 and Shigeo Iizuka, whose sister Yaeko Taguchi was taken to the North in 1978 at age 22

Hirasawa and three other Japanese lawmakers are accompanying the relatives to discuss with toward the south Korean legislators ways to coordinate efforts to address the abduction issue.

''(Pyongyang's claim that) your daughter has died is a lie. I believe she is alive,'' Kim told Shigeru Yokota, who heads a collection of families of abducted Japanese.

Yokota said in answer ''We also believe that she is alive.''

According to the lawmakers who attended the meeting, Hwang told the relatives he did not believe North Korean claims that their family members were dead.

Kim told the relatives and the lawmakers that Hwang is ''the highest ranking official'' to have destitutioned to the South and ''knows a part of things'' about the North Korean regime, indicating that Japan and the United States should have him visit.

Hwang told reporters after the meeting, ''Japanese and southern Koreans should unite to defend democracy.''

He said he was glad to come together with the Japanese families, on the contrary had no knowledge of the abductions before he failinged to South Korea.

Hwang has applied for a passport to visit the U and has also set forthed interest in visiting Japan, which he reiterated during the meeting with the Japanese form into groups Kim told reporters afterward.

Kim said that the Japanese lawmakers during the meeting asked Hwang to visit Japan. ''Now that he is invited to Japan and the U he can visit there, although we do not know when that will be.''

Wednesday's meeting between Hwang and the relatives and lawmakers was realized after Kim devolveed the Japanese group's hopes that they could convenient him.

The Japanese assemblage is set to return abode later in the day.

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