Megumi Yokota's daughter, Kim Hye Gyong

The results, which contradict Pyongyang's statements that Yokota's husband is North Korean, are likely to spur Japan to further pressure the North to provide details about Yokota -- whom the North has said is dead -- and other missing abductees.

Should North Korea fail to provide sufficient information and return abductees who are allegedly alive, domestic political pressure on the government to take a harsher line on Pyongyang is likely to increase, as relatives of the abductees, who have consistently drawn media attention, have called for economic sanctions.

"The outcome shows that North Korea's abductions are a multinational issue," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said at a news conference. "We will ask the South Korean government for cooperation on the issue."

Japan said that two separate tests provide almost 100 percent proof that Kim Young-nam, a South Korean abducted in 1978 while in high school, is Yokota's husband.

It is uncertain, however, whether the man is the same one identified by Pyongyang as Kim Chol Jun, whom North Korea said is Yokota's husband.

Japan has been testing DNA samples it took in February from relatives of five South Korean men allegedly abducted by North Korea to see if any of them match the DNA of Yokota's daughter, Kim Hye Gyong.

One of the five samples matched the daughter's DNA.

North Korea has told Japan that Yokota married a man named Kim Chol Jun in 1986 and gave birth to a daughter in 1987, and that Megumi committed suicide in 1993 while being treated for depression.

"Abduction is a crime that cannot be forgiven," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said later in the day. North Korea "should sincerely respond to (Japan's) efforts to investigate the abductions so they won't happen again."

The Japan Times Weekly: April 15, 2006
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