Nuclear standoff with North Korea may hurt cause of Japanese

TOKYO -- When he stepped off the plane from North Korea wearing a communist lapel pin, Kaoru Hasuike had never seen a mobile phone. In fact, he tried ringing up a friend using the television remote control in his Tokyo hotel room.

Nine months later, he has shed the communist badge, picked up his own cell phone, an e-mail account and even a new automobile. But still missing are the two children left behind in the North -- remains of a family fractured by one of the Cold War's last frontiers.

For Hasuike and the four other kidnapped Japanese held hostage for a quarter century in North Korea, life is as much in limbo as ever.

Hopes for reunions with the children and a spouse living incommunicado in the North are all but shattered by the global standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Growing frustration over the families' fates has fueled a backlash against the Tokyo government that won their freedom, but now stands accused of going soft.

"There is no progress, no information. The government must take a stronger stand against North Korea. The time is now," said Hasuike's older brother Toru.

"No one expected it would take this long to reunite the families," he said.

Supporters submitted a petition this week signed by 3.15 million people demanding the government equate the abductions to state-sponsored terrorism, and, if necessary, use sanctions to pressure North Korea into releasing the remaining family members.

A historic stalemate

"I think I can say things are at a stalemate," said Kyoko Nakayama, special Cabinet envoy for abductee issues.

The story of the five, all kidnapped in 1978 and now in their 40s, has unfolded like an eerie Cold War epilogue.

Nothing was heard of them until North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a summit last autumn they had been abducted, apparently to train communist agents in Japanese language and customs.

Tokyo secured their Oct. 15 homecoming, originally for just two weeks. But the group opted to stay for good, leading to the current tug-of-war.

At its center are two married couples, including Hasuike and his wife Yukiko Okudo, with a total of five children in North Korea. A fifth abductee, Hitomi Soga, is married to accused U.S. Army deserter Charles Robert Jenkins, who also remains in Pyongyang along with their two teenage daughters.

The Tokyo government wants the children and Jenkins returned; Pyongyang refuses.

Little progress has been made since the last round of talks with North Korea ended in an impasse last November, Nakayama said.

Japan has turned the screws by stepping up inspections of North Korean ships at Japanese ports, re-examining the tax-exempt status of a North Korean nonprofit group here and rallying international support.

The Group of Eight industrialized countries evoked the abductees last month in a rebuke against North Korea and President Bush pledged American solidarity during a May summit meeting with Koizumi in Texas.

Family members took the cause to Washington and the United Nations, and recently staged a demonstration with the abductees in Seoul.

Nakayama says putting pressure on North Korea is complicated by the international showdown over the North's missiles and nuclear weapons programs.

"We have to gauge North Korea's actions before deciding on new economic sanctions, because it involves not only the abductions, but missiles and the nuclear issue as well," Nakayama says.

Fearing reprisals against their children, the five abductees rarely champion their cause in public and the Japanese media has pledged not to pry -- focusing on the abductees' readjustment to Japan rather than their mysterious missing years.

Coverage over the last few months showed Soga learning to drive, another couple getting jobs at City Hall and Hasuike visiting his old university, where he waxed nostalgic about the cafeteria's ramen noodles.

"I want him to talk more," bristles his brother Toru. "But it's not safe to do that."

Soga has pleaded to the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, Howard Baker, for a pardon for her husband, who faces possible arrest on desertion charges if he leaves North Korea.

Baker reportedly offered only his "sympathy."

Soga is the only returnee to have contact with her family in the North, Nakayama said. She sent Jenkins and her daughters a letter and three winter coats earlier this year, and received a reply -- the contents of which are also under wraps.

But Nakayama said Jenkins' reply showed no signs he and his daughters will be allowed to leave any time soon.

"I understand they are worried because the children's and families' return date is not set," she said. "But our government is making efforts so they can return to Japan safely. So please believe in us and have patience."