Trump pledges support for return of Japanese abducted by N Korea

May 28, 2019 | News On Japan

May 28, 2019 (Japan Today) - U.S. President Donald Trump met Monday with the families of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s, vowing to cooperate with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to secure their return.

"We will be working together to bring your relatives, your daughters, your sons, your mothers home," Trump said in the meeting in Tokyo, which took place after an audience with new Emperor Naruhito and a summit with Abe.

The abduction issue remains one of Japan's biggest grievances against North Korea and a major hurdle to establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Among the attendees of the meeting were Sakie Yokota, whose 13-year-old daughter Megumi was abducted on her way home from school in 1977, and Shigeo Iizuka, brother of Yaeko Taguchi who went missing the following year at the age of 22.

Japan officially lists 17 people as confirmed victims, five of whom were repatriated in 2002, and suspects the North's involvement in many more disappearances.

Trump also met with the families of the abductees during his previous trip to Tokyo in November 2017. He has raised the matter at his two summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

But the issue has largely taken a back seat to denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang, prompting Abe earlier this month to ease his previous stance that a guarantee of progress on the abduction issue would be a prerequisite to meeting with Kim.

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