Abductee Megumi Yokota’s mother hopes for cooperation from American leader

November 5, 2017

Kawasaki Kanagawa Pref.- The 81-year-old mother of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese abductee to North Korea, expressed her hope that U.S. President Donald Trump will cooperate to realize her daughter's return home.

"I'll make an appeal for my daughter's early return," Sakie Yokota said in an interview with Jiji Press ahead of a meeting with the president on Monday. "I hope he, as a father, will cooperate."

Trump mentioned the abduction of her daughter in his U.N. General Assembly speech in September. The U.S. leader, set to visit Japan from Sunday, will meet with relatives of Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago, including Yokota.

Almost 40 years have passed since Megumi, then 13, was kidnapped on Nov. 15, 1977.

"I want to get just a glimpse of her," Yokota said, noting that abductees' relatives are getting old and frail.

Her husband, Shigeru, 84, is "weakening" and has "difficulties walking and speaking," she said.

"We've done all we could (over the last 40 years). Now, we can only pray," she said.

Yokota expressed her irritation at the Japanese government's inability to bring back her daughter and other abductees from North Korea "for such a long time."

But Yokota said she is grateful to have been given an opportunity to meet Megumi's North Korean daughter, Kim Eun Gyong, in 2014.

Amid tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, Yokota called for avoiding a war, citing her experience of World War II.

"Sanctions are necessary, but dialogue is also needed," she said. "We must not be made light of, but we shouldn't just push (North Korea) into a corner." Jiji Press