Give Them Back

Getting serious with Pyongyang, on any number of issues, seems to be a shared popular desire:

The Japanese families of people abducted to North Korea on Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the historic visit by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Pyongyang by demanding that the Japanese government take a tougher stance to settle the abduction issue.

They met the press in Tokyo after North Korea's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said that the abduction issue was "settled" when Koizumi visited Pyongyang and met leader Kim Jong Il on Sept. 17 last year.

But many families of those believed abducted said no progress has since been made to settle the abduction issue.

...Kayoko Arimoto, mother of Keiko Arimoto who was kidnapped by North Korean agents from Europe when she was 23, pledged to continue a campaign to rescue her daughter and other abductees.

"I believe Keiko is alive and waiting for our rescue," she said. "I will keep campaigning for her rescue as long as I can."


Yes, North Korea is everyone's problem.

UPDATE: And North Korea has made it more than obvious that it's erratic and dishonest at the negotiating table with any party - for a dictatorship, at that. Don't expect any gentlemen's frameworks to be agreed upon in the near future; that goes for Seoul, Tokyo and Washington.

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