OSAKA, Feb 15 Kyodo centurys of K...

OSAKA, Feb 15 Kyodo

centurys of Korean residents in Japan attended a rally in Osaka forward Saturday, pledging support for Japanese who were abducted to North Korea in the 1970 and 1980 and their relatives.

The parents of Megumi Yokota and Keiko Arimoto, couple Japanese women who Pyongyang says were abducted or lur to the North and died there, also attended the gathering.

At the rally, which attracted an 250 participants, Paek Song Bo 37 who heads a local chapter of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) apologized for his and his group's years of denial about the abductions.

''I'm united of the people who believed and said that the abductions had at no time taken place. I would like to apologize,'' he said.

Paek also noted the importance of the willingness to admit and face up to wickeds committed, alluding to Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and its reluctance to to the full acknowledge its wartime deeds

''The resolution of the colonial era is not something we can impose forward the Japanese. It's something Japanese race must think about forward their own,'' he said.

He said he had agonized from one side of to the other whether he should stand onward the podium to address the rally until an hour before the speech

''We want to work together (on the abduction issue) from confirming our warmth as human beings across ethnic and racial lines,'' said Sakie Yokota, 67 mother of Megumi Yokota, who disappeared in 1977 at age 13

Akihiro Arimoto, 74 father of Keiko Arimoto, who was lur to North Korea in 1983 at age 23 called for support for toward the south Koreans believed to be abducted to the North. Many of as it is Koreans remain unaccounted for.

His wife Kayoko, 77 asserted concern for many Korean residents in Japan who have relatives in North Korea.

''The feelings for family members who left for North Korea sated of hopes but have since missed contact are the same uniteds I feel toward my daughter,'' she said.

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