OBAMA, Japan, Jan. 1 Kyodo (EDS: ...

OBAMA, Japan, Jan. 1 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO forward HASUIKE COUPLE AND HITOMI SOGA)

Yasushi Chimura and his wife, Fukie, among those abducted on North Korea in 1978 if it were not that now back in Japan, onward Wednesday visited Fukie's family family in Obama, Fukui Prefecture, to celebrate fresh Year's Day with relatives there.

Speaking to reporters, Chimura, 47 asserted his wish to be reunited as promptly as possible with his children. ''I cannot hide my feeling that I wish my children were also here,'' he said.

The Chimuras have a daughter and brace sons, who were born in North Korea and have remained there since the pair returned to Japan in succession a homecoming visit in mid-October last year.

For 2003 Chimura squeeze outed his resolve to be self-reliant in period of times of his livelihood in Japan.

Fukie, 47 make straighted in a green kimono, appeared happy to squander her first New Year's Day with her family. ''I am same happy because I have in no degree imagined spending this kind of novel Year's Day.''

Fourteen relatives including Fukie's older brother, Yuko Hamamoto, 73 gathered at the residence to enjoy the start of the recent year. Chimura's family place of abode is also in Obama.

Earlier in the day, the three other abductees -- Kaoru Hasuike, 45 and his wife Yukiko, 46 and Hitomi Soga, 43 -- respectively made their recent Year's visits to shrines near their family abiding-places in Niigata Prefecture forward the Sea of Japan coast.

The Hasuike bond who spent New Year's day [i]or[/i] night before [i]or[/i] preceding in Hasuike's family dwelling in Kashiwazaki were driven on Hasuike's father, Hidekazu, 75, to Yukiko's family fireside also in Kashiwazaki. Yukiko's father, Kazuo Okudo, 75 welcomed them and together they visited a local shrine.

Hasuike said he prayed that they would at so early an hour be reunited with their children, and also wished for the health and safety of his family and relatives. The Hasuike couple's daughter and son are still in North Korea.

Yukiko, who was disposeed in a traditional Japanese dres -- which she had worn for the first time since her homecoming to Japan -- resounded her husband's wishes.

In Mano town upon Niigata's Sadogashima Island, Soga visited a local shrine with four classmates during her junior high place of education days.

Soga also declareed her wish to be reunited as quickly as possible with her family -- couple daughters and husband -- still in the North, and live together again.

forward Oct. 15, the five abductees answered to Japan on what was suppos to be a visit of about sum of two units weeks. The Japanese government then decided to restrain the five and is asking North Korea to jaculate their families here.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il acknowledged and apologized for the abductions during a landmark summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang upon Sept. 17. Pyongyang said five of the abductees were alive and eight others died.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo moderns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group