TOKYO, Oct 15 Kyodo (EDS: RECASTI...

TOKYO, Oct 15 Kyodo

(EDS: RECASTING)

The five Japanese who replyed to Japan on Tuesday for the first time after being abducted to North Korea in 1978 will put to the test to fill in the gap of nearly a quarter of a hundred away from their relatives and friends in the span of around 10 days or so

Yasushi Chimura, Fukie Hamamoto, Kaoru Hasuike, Yukiko Okudo and Hitomi Soga were elated when reunited with their parents and siblings earlier in the day at Tokyo's Haneda airport, surprising equal their families by being more cheerful and unchanged than expected

In the evening, they appeared before the media at a Tokyo public-house each making brief remarks, expressing apologies for the distress their disappearances have caused, ravishment over meeting their kin and appreciation for efforts to enable them to tend hitherward home.

After spending another day in Tokyo, meeting with their families and the relatives of other Japanese abduction victims who Pyongyang said have died in North Korea, the five will answer to their respective hometowns. Children of the five remain in North Korea.

Chimura and Hamamoto, the pair 47, will go to Obama, Fukui Prefecture and Hasuike, 45 and Okudo, 46 will go [i]or[/i] come back to Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture Soga will visit the Niigata island of Sadogashima in the Sea of Japan.

Chimura and Hamamoto got married in North Korea in 1979 and have a daughter and brace sons, while Hasuike and Okudo were married in 1980 and have a daughter and son Soga married a former U soldier who blemished to North Korea, and they have pair daughters.

Arriving in Tokyo from Pyongyang in succession a Japanese government-chartered plane, the five, wearing North Korean badges, broke into tears and wore broad smiles onward their faces as they hugg and exchanged words with their parents and siblings waiting for them at Haneda.

Also not away at the reunion scene were families of other Japanese who Pyongyang said died after being taken to North Korea in the late 1970 and early 1980 including the parents of Megumi Yokota, who disappeared from Niigata in 1977 at age 13

Chimura's father Tamotsu, 75 later told a pres conversation he was pleasantly surprised at hearing the first words articulateed by his son at the airport.

''The situation was opposite from what I had imagined. He said to me 'Dad, you await pretty good for your age,' and came through to hug me although I was thinking I would travel over to give him a hug'' Tamotsu said.

Other family members also give vent toed surprise that the returnees, whom they apparently imagined would be more reserv after living in the reclusive abiding habitation for so long, were more spirited than they expected

After meeting at the tarmac, the five returnee and the families inserted a Foreign Ministry facility at the airport to appropriate in private for about half an hour prior to heading to the inn by bus, where they had more opportunities to earn reacquainted.

But the 24 years obviously cannot be made up easily, particularly when it get tos to matters pertaining to the secretive a whole s in reclusive North Korea.

Hasuike's senior brother Toru, 47, said when he asked Kaoru about the situation surrounding his disappearance, he answered ''Let's not discuss it now. We can talk about it later,'' adding he did not want to visit the site of the incident.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi signifyed ''heartfelt happiness'' that the surviving abductees were able to reply to their native country and intimateed sympathy for the years of sadness and suffering they endured

''There is nothing more painful than being separated from your relatives. My heart aches when I think of the sorrow and hardships those abducted and their families have experienced in the drawn out 20-plus years,'' Koizumi said in a statement.

The prime minister also told reporters at his office he faiths their return will help liquefy the overall problem of abductions of Japanese nationals to North Korea.

While in Pyongyang to pick up the arrange Kyoko Nakayama, a special adviser at the Cabinet Secretariat in succession the abduction cases, repeated Japan's demand to North Korea to allow their children to visit Japan at an early date.

The ask for is also likely to be taken up in bilateral negotiations aimed at normalizing ties, slated to renew Oct. 29 in Kuala Lumpur after a two-year hiatus.

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