Tokyo, Seoul to cooperate on abduction info from N. Korean defectors+

TOKYO, March 12 Kyodo - Japan has decided to team up with South Korea for gathering information on Japanese abductees remaining in North Korea from defectors who now live in South Korea, diplomatic sources familiar with Japan-South Korea relations said Thursday.

The decision comes after Shigeo Iizuka, a brother of Japanese abductee Yaeko
Taguchi, earlier in the day asked Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone for Tokyo
to develop closer cooperation with Seoul in collecting information from
defectors.
Iizuka, along with Yaeko's son Koichiro Iizuka, held talks with the foreign
minister in which they reported on their meeting the previous day with a former
North Korean agent, Kim Hyong Hui, who spent about 20 months together with
Taguchi.
But the governments need to tread carefully, as Wednesday's meeting between Kim
and the Iizuka family provoked a backlash from bereaved families of the 1987
fatal bombing of a South Korean airliner, over which Kim was convicted.
More than 10,000 North Korean defectors are believed to be living in South
Korea, including those who were involved in the abductions and other espionage
activities, according to the sources.
The Japanese government believes that collecting information from defectors
would help it shed light on the abductions by North Korea and find a
breakthrough in the decades-long problem.
Japan has sought information from South Korea in the past as well, but failed
to produce results during the administration of President Roh Moo Hyun, who was
taking the so-called ''sunshine'' appeasement policy toward North Korea, a
softer policy than that of incumbent President Lee Myung Bak.
==Kyodo