Photo/Illutration Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korea in 1977, speaks at a news conference. (Pool)

Sept. 17 marked the 20th anniversary of a landmark summit meeting between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that for a brief moment raised hopes the thorny issue of Pyongyang’s abductions of Japanese nationals would be resolved once and for all.

Later that year, five Japanese nationals returned to Japan--years after they were spirited away to Pyongyang. But since then, no discernible progress has been made in bringing back others still believed to be held in North Korea. 

Song Il Ho, North Korea’s ambassador who has long been involved in negotiations with Japan, issued a statement on Sept. 15 that said, “Japan has resurrected the abduction issue that had been completely resolved.”

But at a Sept. 16 news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said, “There is no change in the government’s position of comprehensively resolving various issues, such as the abduction of Japanese nationals and North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development based on the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration with the goal of normalizing relations through a final accounting of the sad past” between the two nations.

Koizumi and Kim Jong Il signed the Pyongyang Declaration, which was intended to serve as a pillar in efforts by the two countries to normalize their diplomatic relations, in 2002.

An association of family members of those abducted by North Korea marked the anniversary by holding a meeting in Tokyo on Sept. 16 and again calling on the government to bring back those still held in North Korea as soon as possible.

Many of the parents of those abducted decades ago are now far advanced in years. Only two parents of the 12 Japanese nationals still believed held in North Korea are alive.

In recent years, two leaders of the association, Shigeru Yokota and Shigeo Iizuka, have died.

The association is now led by Takuya Yokota, 54, Shigeru’s son and the younger brother of Megumi Yokota, who was 13 when she was abducted by North Korean agents in Niigata Prefecture in 1977. North Korea says she died years ago, but Japanese officials insist she may still be alive.

Association members are not only concerned about dwindling numbers of immediate family members of the remaining abductees, but also the ramifications of the slaying of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July. Abe had long been involved in the abduction issue and declared that resolution of the issue took the highest priority during his two stints as leader.

And while Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has vowed to carry on the baton from Abe, he does not have the close association with the issue that Abe had.

The abductions were carried out in the 1970s and ’80s to train North Korean agents in Japanese culture, customs and language.

(This article was compiled from reports by Takashi Narazaki, Nobuhiko Tajima and Ryutaro Abe in Tokyo, Takuya Suzuki in Seoul, and Ryuichi Kitano, a senior staff writer.)

Related News