The diplomatically delicate fate of a former US army sergeant will be on the agenda when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dines with President George W. Bush at a world leaders' summit in the United States on Tuesday.
Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, - who Washington says deserted to North Korea 40 years ago - is married to Hitomi Soga, one of five surviving Japanese abducted by North Korean agents who returned to Japan in October 2002 after a quarter century in the secretive communist state.
The other four abductees were reunited with their North Korean-born children after Koizumi won their release at a May 22 summit in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
But Jenkins and the couple's two daughters, aged 20 and 18, stayed in Pyongyang for fear he would be handed over to the US military for court martial if he came to Japan.
Koizumi, asked whether he would raise the issue of possible prosecution of Jenkins when he lunched with Bush, told reporters on Monday: "I plan to mention it but this is a delicate issue."
Jenkins's American relatives in North Carolina think he himself may have been abducted.
Japan, however, has had scant success in persuading the United States to agree on special treatment for Jenkins and Bush could have trouble doing so given the domestic pressure he faces over the Iraq occupation and the military abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
Comments
Comments are closed.