Indonesia to host special reunion

Indonesia to host special reunion

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia has become the place for a special reunion, with North
Korea allowing a family split up by Cold War abductions to
celebrate their daughter's 19th birthday in the country.

The mother of the family now lives in Japan after she was
repatriated there in 2002, after being abducted by Pyonyang
agents 24 years earlier.

North Korean counterpart Paek Nam-sun assured her Japanese
counterpart Yoriko Kawaguchi on Wednesday her government would
allow the girl's father, U.S. Army deserter and defector Charles
Robert Jenkins, and his two daughters to travel from North Korea
to Indonesia and meet their Japanese wife and mother, Hitomi
Soga.

The family is expected to celebrate the birthday of daughter,
Belinda, on July 23 in Indonesia, possibly in Bali or in Bogor,
West Java.

"We were told that Mr. Jenkins has agreed to a reunion in
Indonesia," Kawaguchi said after meeting with Paek at the JW
Marriot Hotel in South Jakarta.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said the Japanese
foreign minister had asked Indonesia whether it was ready to
facilitate the reunion. "We reiterated that for humanitarian
reasons we are ready to do so," Hassan said.

A Japanese official disclosed Jenkins had agreed to go to
Indonesia because the country did not have an extradition treaty
with the U.S., which insisted on prosecuting him for his
desertion in 1964.

"I am very happy to hear the results of the Japan-North Korea
talks," Soga said.

The couple married in 1989. Pyongyang abducted Soga when she
was still 19 years old in 1978 along with a group of Japanese
citizens. In October 2002, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi succeeded in persuading then-North Korean President Kim
Jong-il to release Soga and other Japanese citizens abducted by
the regime.

Meanwhile in related matters, President Megawati Soekarnoputri
met with Paek and South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-moon on
Thursday a day after their scheduled meeting to discuss the North
Korean nuclear issue. In a statement issued after the meeting
they said,"In keeping with the spirit of the South-North Joint
Declaration, the two sides concurred on the need to intensify
exchanges and cooperation."

Six-party nuclear talks will be held in Beijing September and
will be attended by North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, the
U.S. and Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is in Jakarta to
attend the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), indicated he was unlikely
to meet with Paek on the sidelines of the forum on Friday.