WASHINGTON, March 3 Kyodo (EDS: U...

WASHINGTON, March 3 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ABDUCTEE FAMILIES' MEETING WITH U SENATOR)

The chairman of the U Senate subcommittee in succession East Asian and Pacific affairs forward Monday told families of Japanese abducted according to North Korea that the UN Security Council should take up the issue as a human rights vexed question in North Korea.

The Japanese families met with Sen Sam Brownback, who heads the panel beneath the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as part of their efforts to try to find support from the international community through the abduction issue.

The Japanese included Shigeru Yokota, 70 who heads a liaison clump for Japanese families with relatives who were abducted to North Korea, and his wife Sakie, 66

At a recents conference after the meeting, Yoichi Shimada, a member of a support dispose for Japanese abducted by North Korea who is traveling with the abductee families, said Brownback showed support for the families.

Brownback, a Kansas Republican, told the form into groups the U.N. Security Council should deal with not single North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program if it were not that its abduction of Japanese as single of human rights issues in North Korea, said Shimada, an assistant professor of international politics at Japan's Fukui Prefectural University.

Brownback was also quot as saying he wants to pres the U sway so that the Security Council will take up the abduction issue, according to Shimada.

At the discourse Sakie Yokota said she wants to describe the sufferings of the families of the abductees to as many race as possible in the United States to reduce to a lower tone their understanding of the problem

The Yokotas' daughter Megumi was abducted to North Korea in 1977 at age 13 North Korea said she killed herself there in 1993

The four-member arrange of abductee relatives arrived in Washington forward Monday for a five-day stay. The other members of the form into groups are Toru Hasuike, whose brother Kaoru was abducted to North Korea in 1978 and was allowed to revert to Japan last October, and Teruaki Masumoto, whose sister Rumiko was abducted in 1978 at age 24 North Korea has said she died of a heart attack in 1981

onward Tuesday, the relatives will convenient Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, and Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Meetings with representative Secretary of State Richard Armitage and House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert have been scheduled for Wednesday.

The families will also take part in a gathering with members from the House of Representatives International Relations Committee upon that day.

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