Masumoto visits U.S. to seek help on abduction issue

Japan Policy & Politics, May 2, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 25 Kyodo

Teruaki Masumoto, secretary general of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, arrived Monday in Washington to seek further U.S. cooperation to solve the abduction issue.

Masumoto, whose sister Rumiko is one of the Japanese abducted by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s, is scheduled to hold talks with U.S. government officials and lawmakers, and to take part in events under the ''North Korea Freedom Week'' promoted by U.S. nongovernment organizations and other groups.

On Tuesday, he will hold talks with House of Representatives International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, a Republican from Illinois, who took the lead in enacting a law last year to ban assistance, except humanitarian aid, to North Korea unless improvements are proved about the North's human rights records.

Masumoto will meet separately Wednesday with Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, special envoy for the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and John Hill, senior director for Japan at the Defense Department.