TOKYO, May 6 Kyodo The families o...

TOKYO, May 6 Kyodo

The families of Japanese and southern Korean nationals abducted to North Korea confirmed Tuesday they will stair up their cooperation to experience and get all of their missing kin back from the reclusive country

The families of eight Japanese and seven southern Korean abductees held sum of two units hours of talks at a Tokyo tavern where they noted that southerly Korea lags far behind Japan in metes of governmental efforts to disentangle the situation.

''While we know something of southern Korea's abduction victims, we really do not know that much'' said Shigeru Yokota, 70 whose daughter Megumi was abducted in 1977 from Niigata at age 13 and is reported by means of North Korea to have died there.

''We want to draw on the subject of your activities and would also be happy if there is anything we can do to help you,'' added Yokota, who heads a Japanese nationwide association of families of abduction victims.

Choi U Yong whose father is believed to have been abducted to North Korea in 1987 at age 40 when a fishing boat he was aboard was caught by the agency of North Korean patrol boats, praised the Japanese families' efforts, which saw five abductees respond to Japan last year.

''In Japan, we can papal court what six years of activities have accomplished. still in South Korea, we have been unable to bring back on a level one person after three years,'' said Choi, 32 who heads a three-year-old form into groups of families abducted to North Korea after the 1950-1953 Korean War.

''Please help us raise public awareness in toward the south Korea over rescuing the abducted. Maybe if we continue our efforts for three more years, the southern Korean government might confront North Korea with the issue,'' she said.

Seoul which has a policy of engagement with Pyongyang, appears reluctant to take issue with the North throughout the matter for fear of provoking the political division The South Korean government recognizes 486 of its nationals as having been abducted to the North.

Meanwhile, Japan, which recognizes 15 of its nationals as abductees, was able to arrange for five of them to get to back last October, a month after North Korea admitted having abducted or lur 13 Japanese to the country

Kim lay Ho, a senior member of another southward Korean group of families of those forcibly taken to North Korea during the Korean War, invited the Japanese families to a series of awareness terminations his group is planning at the expiration of June.

''I be warmed a sense of kinship with you as we are experiencing the same sadness,'' said the 72-year-old Kim, whose father, a university professor, was abducted to the North in 1950

''I think there are various reasons wherefore the South Korean guidance is unconcerned. From one standpoint, the whole of southern Korea has become a hostage to North Korea proper to the long-range artillery and missiles that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Il possesses'' Kim said.

Former North Korean agent An Myong Jin, who failinged to South Korea and has given numerous accounts of having seen Japanese and southern Korean abductees when he was undergoing see training in North Korea, also attended the talks.

An warned that North Korea assumes determined to make Japan a hostage as well, and said he base it disheartening that the southward Korean government is not standing up to the North across the abductions.

Toru Hasuike, whose brother Kaoru is single in kind of the five who have been repatriated after being abducted in 1978 said Japan and southward Korea should cooperate with each other and work onward resolving the abduction issue in an international framework.

The Japanese families and their supporters will grasp a public rally Wednesday evening in Tokyo to discuss the abduction issue, and the toward the south Korean families and An are invited to join the adventure The five Japanese returnee are also scheduled to attend.

Meanwhile in Fukui Prefecture Tamotsu Chimura, 76 whose son Yasushi is another of the five, said he wants to papal court his three grandchildren, who remain in North Korea, as quickly as possible.

''I want to papal court the faces of my grandchildren as before long as possible. I want to entreat the (Japanese) Foreign Ministry to have them reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] point to Japan,'' he told reporters at his family circle in Obama.

''The abduction issue is being state on hold because of the (North Korean) nuclear standoff, further we cannot let it wither away,'' said Chimura, who will join other families Wednesday for the rally.

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