North Korean woman accuses Japan of abduction

BEIJING, June 26 (Reuters) A North Korean woman accused Japan today of abducting her in 2003, in an apparent gambit to turn the tables on Tokyo, which has pressed Pyongyang to resolve the emotive issue of kidnapped Japanese.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said Tokyo would refuse economic assistance to its reclusive neighbour unless it saw progress in a dispute over Japanese citizens kidnapped decades ago to help train North Korean spies in language and culture.

To Chu-ji told a news conference at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing that she was ''abducted by bad people'' while she was in North Korea in October 2003.

After crossing a river separating China and North Korea, To said she was taken in a jeep to the Japanese consulate in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang. She flew to Japan two weeks later after negotiations between Beijing and Tokyo.

After living in Japan for more than three years, To said she decided to return to North Korea and left Japan on June 21.

It was unclear why Japan would have allowed her to leave if she was kidnapped as she had asserted.

To was born in Japan in 1949 and returned to North Korea in 1960 with her North Korean father and Japanese mother. She said Japan today was different from what she knew as a child, adding that people now did not care about each other or communicate.

In Japan, ''elderly people do not know when and how they die ... their bodies are discovered months later'', the 57-year-old said through an interpreter.

She likened living in Japan to ''living in a prison without bars'' and said she could not continue living in Japan.

The mother of five also said she missed her children.

''I'm afraid I would die without seeing my children again,'' said the bespectacled To, flanked by the interpreter and a North Korean diplomat. ''I should die beside my children.'' She did not take any questions and sang a Korean song for reporters before the 20-minute news conference ended.

Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese, five of whom have since been repatriated.

North Korea says the other eight are dead, but Tokyo wants better information about their fate, as well as information on another four people it says were also kidnapped.

Abe once again emphasised the abduction issue yesterday when asked by reporters about North Korea's statement that it would start implementing a February nuclear disarmament deal.

Abe has repeatedly stated that Japan does not want Washington to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism until the abductions dispute is resolved.

North Korea had agreed at six-country talks in February to mothball its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for fuel oil and other benefits, including steps to lift trade sanctions and remove it from the US terrorism list.

REUTERS SLD KP1030