Koizumi plans to seek U.S. 'consideration' for Jenkins

Koizumi plans to seek U.S. 'consideration' for Jenkins

Isabel Reynolds, Reuters/Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Monday he plans
to seek special consideration from Washington for an accused U.S.
Army deserter who married a Japanese woman during their long stay
in North Korea.

Washington accuses Charles Robert Jenkins, who arrived in
Japan on Sunday with his wife, Hitomi Soga, and their two
daughters, of deserting to the communist North 39 years ago. He
met Soga after she was abducted by Pyongyang agents in the 1970s.

"I think we have to negotiate with the United States while he
is being treated for his illness and, if possible, seek special
consideration," Koizumi told reporters on a visit to Niigata,
northwest of Tokyo, which has been hit by severe flooding.

"For the time being, we want to create a situation where he
can focus on his treatment," Kyodo news agency quoted Koizumi as
adding.

Jenkins, 64, has been admitted to a Tokyo hospital where he is
to be examined by Japanese doctors on Tuesday.

The United States has repeatedly said it would have the right
to request custody of Jenkins if he came to Japan.

The American ambassador to Japan has said U.S. authorities may
delay the request out of consideration for Jenkins' health
problems. Analysts say there may be a tacit agreement to try to
avoid a row with Japan, a key U.S. ally.

The former army sergeant spent his first full day in Japan on
Monday relaxing with his family after risking arrest by flying in
for medical treatment.

"They will be taking it easy at the hospital, where they have
adjacent rooms," a Japanese government official said.

Jenkins, Soga and their North Korea-born daughters Mika, 21,
and Belinda, 18, flew to Tokyo on Sunday from Jakarta. It was his
first stop after Pyongyang since Indonesia has no extradition
treaty with the United States.

"I don't think they are at all in a fit state to go out," the
official said.

The couple's daughters have at times appeared bewildered since
their reunion with their mother in Indonesia last week. Soga
returned to Japan, along with four other Japanese abductees, in
2002. She had to leave her family behind.

On Sunday the two girls had swapped the red North Korean
badges they had worn since leaving on July 9 for blue ribbons,
symbols of the Japanese abducted by North Korea.

Medical examinations and treatment would begin on Tuesday
since Monday is a public holiday, the official said. Japanese
officials say Jenkins has not recovered from a stomach operation
in North Korea earlier this year.

After appearing relatively fit when he arrived in Jakarta last
week, Jenkins disembarked in Tokyo looking frail and bent and
walked across the airport tarmac leaning on a cane and on the arm
of his wife. He entered the hospital in a wheelchair.

Jenkins, originally from North Carolina, was a 24-year-old
army sergeant on night patrol near the demilitarized zone between
North and South Korea in 1965 when he left his men to check a
noise.

He surfaced in the North where the United States says he
became part of the communist state's propaganda machine.

Some U.S. relatives say he was kidnapped and brainwashed.

Soga was a student nurse in 1978 when North Korean agents
kidnapped her and her mother in a Japanese coastal town as the
two women returned from buying groceries.

She was gagged, flung in a sack and put on a boat to North
Korea. Her mother, Miyoshi, has not been heard from since.

Soga's determination to be reunited with her family in her
home country has gained her widespread public sympathy in Japan,
where her story has dominated news headlines in recent weeks.