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Japan abductees push N Korea nuke issue into shadows

TOKYO: Few Japanese had heard of Hitomi Soga until she stepped off a plane from Pyongyang last month, clad in a dowdy suit and looking tense and shy.

Now her every move is captured by TV cameras with the attention usually reserved for pop stars and her comments chronicled with the same care as remarks by the prime minister. Soga, along with four other Japanese who returned to their homeland last month after being spirited away to North Korea a quarter of a century ago, has become a media obsession.

That fixation, along with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s desire to keep his popularity rates up, is pushing key issues such as Pyongyang’s nuclear arms and missile programmes into the shadows as Tokyo tries to normalise ties with its former colony. “I don’t want to normalise ties with a country that would do such a thing,” said 31-year-old office worker Masae Fujishiro, shrugging off any suggestion that dealing with Pyongyang’s military threat was of equal import to resolving the abductions issue.

“If they launched an attack on Japan, it would start a world war and I don’t think even North Korea would do that,” she said.

A perception that such views are widespread is one reason, analysts say, why Japan has toughened its stance towards Pyongyang in the weeks since Soga and the others came home. Tokyo has refused to send back the five abductees as planned and is insisting that their North Korean-born children be brought to Japan before talks on other matters proceed.

“Koizumi seems to think that if he moves in line with public opinion, his support rate won’t decline,” said Hiroshi Fujita, a journalism professor at Sophia University.

“Of course, the abduction issue is...important, but other matters such as the nuclear and missile programmes have bigger long-term implications, “ he added.

Human drama: The five abductees were thrust into the limelight last month when they returned to Japan after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s stunning admission that Pyongyang had kidnapped them and eight other Japanese decades ago to train spies. Kim’s confession cleared the way for Tokyo and Pyongyang to resume talks on diplomatic ties after a two-year hiatus.

But negotiations now appear deadlocked by the dispute over the five, whom Pyongyang says Tokyo promised to send back, and their children, now in their teens and twenties. Hardly a day goes by without media coverage of the abductees — Soga and two married couples — engaged in such activities as receiving politicians at their homes in northern Japan, visiting family graves, throwing a baseball or just going for a walk. . Soga, now sporting stylish clothes and looking cheerier if still reserved, has become a special media favourite.

On Thursday, several TV broadcasters gave full coverage to her meeting with Masako Mori, a retired singer who was popular in Soga’s youth. —Reuters

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