N. Korea Offers to Reunite Abductees and Families

North Korea has offered to reunite five Japanese abductees -- now living in Japan after decades in the communist country -- with the families they left behind in the North and to consider letting them all settle permanently in Japan, an official said Thursday.

But the abductees would have to visit the North Korean capital of Pyongyang first, said Katsuei Hirasawa, a Japanese lawmaker who met with North Korean officials last weekend.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said if North Korea was serious, it should contact his government directly. But some officials were critical of the offer, saying there was no guarantee that the abductees or their families would be allowed to return to Japan.

The dispute over the abductees has chilled relations between the countries after a brief thaw following a summit in September 2002.

During that summit in Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reversed decades of denials and acknowledged that his nation’s spies had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and ‘80s to train the North’s agents in Japanese language and customs.

North Korea later agreed to let the five known survivors return to Japan for a brief visit in October 2002, but they were forced to leave behind their seven children. One of the survivors left behind her American husband, an alleged U.S. Army deserter from the Korean War.

After arriving in Japan, the five decided to stay for good, angering the North.

North Korean officials met Japanese lawmakers in China last weekend and told them Pyongyang was ready to resolve the issue, Hirasawa said.

Tsutomu Nishioka, a member of an abductees’ support group, said they also offered to let Japanese lawmakers and reporters accompany the abductees.

Pyongyang had previously made the abductees’ trip to Pyongyang a precondition for talks about their future.

But Hirasawa called the proposal unacceptable.

“North Korean officials didn’t offer 100% guarantees that the abductees could return to Japan,” he said.

Said Yasushi Chimura, an abductee: “I’m not sure how much of what North Korea says is believable. But I think the North’s position has changed slightly.”