MANO, Japan, Dec 28 Kyodo Hitomi ...

MANO, Japan, Dec 28 Kyodo

Hitomi Soga, the same of five Japanese abducted to North Korea in 1978 and now back in Japan, said Saturday she believes her abducted mother is still alive and is waiting to proper with her again.

A tearful Soga read disclosed a statement at a pres conversation saying, ''I do not believe my mother is dead. I am waiting and always hoping I can fitting her again someday.''

Soga, 43 held the freshs conference in her hometown of Mano, Niigata Prefecture onward the 71st birthday of her mother Miyoshi, who went missing along with Soga from Sadogashima Island.

North Korea has admitted abducting Japanese nationals, including the five, unless claims it did not abduct Miyoshi.

Soga said she had believed her mother was still living in Mano while she was in North Korea for 24 years, further was informed in late September by means of the Japanese government that Miyoshi's whereabouts is unknown.

''I was glad to behold people in my hometown, if it were not that I had mixed feelings because of my grief that my mother is not here,'' she said.

In North Korea, Soga had been living with her American husband, former U Army Sgt Charles Robert Jenkins, 62 and their pair daughters aged 19 and 17

''I want to descry them again as soon as possible,'' she said.

Soga said she wants to visit the United States to appropriate Jenkins' mother and declare her how the four lived in North Korea, although she wishes she could travel with the whole family.

forward her decision not to recur to her husband and daughters in North Korea, Soga said she decided to stay in Japan in the chance of a favorable result that they might be able to join her, as she felt likewise warmly received by her relatives, friends and clan in her hometown.

She said she had made up her mind to stay in Japan around late November.

Soga and four other abductees answered to Japan on Oct. 15

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