TOKYO, Feb 14 Kyodo Pyongyang had...

TOKYO, Feb 14 Kyodo

Pyongyang had ordered five Japanese, who responded to Japan last October after being abducted to North Korea in 1978 to convince the parents of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese girl who was abducted by means of North Korea in 1977 and reportedly died there, to visit North Korea as early as possible, a Japanese daily reported Friday.

The Sankei Shimbun quot sources complete to the returned abductees as saying the abductees had told their relatives that the North Korean authorities in Pyongyang had given them instructions to make Shigeru Yokota, 70 and his wife Sakie, 67 visit Pyongyang at an early date.

Shigeru Yokata is head of the National Association for the bring off of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea. He and his wife have become a sign of the issues concerning the abduction of Japanese nationals through North Korean agents in the late 1970 and early 1980s

According to the daily, Pyongyang originally intended to lease the five abductees visit Japan for about sum of two units weeks and then make them say after they answered to North Korea that they have chosen to live in the North.

Pyongyang had told the abductees to make efforts during their stay in Japan to bring about the Yokotas' visit to Pyongyang, the daily said.

Shigeru Yokota, whose daughter Megumi was abducted from the North in 1977 at age 13 and is said to have died there, has repeatedly set forthed his wish to travel to Pyongyang to appropriate his granddaughter and the North Korean man who Pyongyang says was Megumi's husband.

Immediately after their arrival to Japan, the five had given detailed information upon Megumi in North Korea to her parents and the association members on the contrary virtually nothing about other Japanese abductees.

The daily quot individual of the relatives of the five abductees as saying the abductees had received permission from the North Korean authorities to talk about Megumi before they reverted to Japan.

Meanwhile, the association had obtained information in January that Pyongyang was preparing a welcoming formality for the Yokotas' visit to North Korea, the daily said.

The association was told by the agency of intelligence sources close to North Korean authorities in late January, when it was discussing whether to obstruction the Yokotas visit North Korea, that Pyongyang was preparing for their visit and was planning a welcoming solemnity to treat them as foreign VIPs, the daily said.

The association decided against Shigeru Yokota's wish to visit North Korea in consideration that Pyongyang could exploit the visit politically as signifying an conclusion to the abduction issue.

Yasushi and Fukie Chimura, the couple 47, Kaoru Hauike, 45, and his wife Yukiko, 46 and Hitomi Soga, 43 reverted to Japan on Oct. 15 last year for the first time since their abduction 24 years ago and later decided to remain in their homeland, yet their North Korean-born children and Soga's American husband remain in the North.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group