Abductee Families Calmly Accept U.S.-N. Korea Summit Cancellation

May 27, 2018

Tokyo- The families of Japanese people abducted by North Korea decades ago reacted calmly to the cancellation of a U.S.-North Korea summit, saying they will wait and watch developments.

In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump cancelling on Thursday his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Sakie Yokota, 82, whose daughter, Megumi, was kidnapped when she was 13, said Friday, "I'm not that upset because I was thinking that anything could happen (when it comes to North Korea)."

"I believe the United States is making the right responses, so I want to see how the situation develops," Yokota said.

Trump has pledged to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he will bring up the abduction issue when he holds talks with Kim.

Masaru Honma, 74, elder brother of Yaeko Taguchi, who was taken to North Korea at the age 22, said, "I don't swing from joy to sorrow with short-term developments."

He also said, however, "I saw it (the U.S.-North Korea summit) as the biggest opportunity, so I feel like the chance to resolve the abduction issue has been lost."

With one avenue for resolution closed, Abe probably cannot do anything, Honma added.

"To bring the abductees home, I think Japan has no choice but to continue to implement its own sanctions," said Yosuke Sakata, 68, who was a classmate of Minoru Tanaka, abducted to North Korea at the age of 28.

Meanwhile, hibakusha, or people who survived the August 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, voiced disappointment with the cancellation of the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit, which was planned to be held in Singapore on June 12. Trump conveyed his decision to cancel the summit in a letter addressed to Kim.

"I was hoping that a successful summit would lead to the scrapping of nuclear weapons," said Chieko Kiriake, an 88-year-old member of a hibakusha association in Hiroshima Prefecture. "I can't understand the intentions of President Trump."

Shigemitsu Tanaka, 77, head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said, "This is regrettable because I was expecting a more stable situation in Northeast Asia."

But Tanaka also said there was still hope because the United States and North Korea are both holding out the possibility of dialogue.

"The letter suggests this is a postponement rather than a cancellation," said Akira Kawasaki, 49, a steering committee member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. "I think it's part of the political bargaining." Jiji Press