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Wednesday May 24, 4:34 PMAbductee's mother thanks top U.S. envoy for role in Bush meeting(Kyodo) _ The mother of Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota thanked U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer on Wednesday for facilitating a meeting between her and U.S. President George W. Bush last month where she raised the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals including her daughter."I am extremely grateful to Ambassador Schieffer for his sincere understanding of the abduction issue and efforts to create a great opportunity (for me) to meet with President Bush," Sakie Yokota said at a forum of the International Friendship Exchange Council, where Schieffer delivered a speech. Yokota met with Schieffer after returning from the United States where she had a meeting with Bush at the White House, during which Bush promised her the United States will press North Korea to return the abductees and respect human rights. The meeting was Bush's first with a relative of a Japanese abductee. North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents abducted 13 Japanese nationals, including Megumi, in the late 1970s and 1980s. Calling Yokota and her husband, Shigeru, who were present at the forum, "great spokesmen for a great injustice that was done to their family and to other families in Japan," Schieffer said he knew that the U.S. president, whom he had known before his presidency, would be moved by Yokota if he had a chance to talk with her. Schieffer praised the Yokotas for "having the courage and tenacity to continue to bring this issue to the conscience of the world" and expressed hope they would continue to do so to create greater awareness of the issue. North Korea has claimed Megumi, abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 at age 13, committed suicide in 1994 while being treated for depression, but her family believes she is still alive in North Korea. Schieffer, in his speech, also touched on various other issues in U.S.-Japan relations such as a beef dispute. He was referring to Japan's reimposition of an import ban on U.S. beef in January after a backbone part was found in a U.S. veal shipment at Narita airport despite being prohibited under bilaterally agreed export requirements. He urged that beef and other bilateral disputes be resolved "as quickly as possible," saying, "The longer they go on, the more corrosive they become to our whole economic partnership." In bilateral technical talks last week in Tokyo, Japan approved the outcome of U.S. safety inspections at meatpacking plants eligible for export to Japan, an approval that may possibly facilitate a Japanese decision as early as mid-June to lift the import ban on U.S. beef. |
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