South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho, center, and Julie Turner, right, visit a North Korean kidnapping site on South Korea’s Seonyudo Island on Friday.
17:21 JST, May 25, 2024
SEOUL – South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho on Friday visited a site in southwestern South Korea where a South Korean man, believed to be Megumi Yokota’s former husband, was kidnapped by North Korea.
This is the first time a South Korean Unification Minister has visited such a kidnapping site. The visit showed that Seoul plans to take a strong stand against Pyongyang on human rights issues.
“An innocent high school student who went to the beach with his friends became a victim,” the Unification Minister said at Seonyudo Beach in Jeonbuk-do, where Kim Young-nam, now 62, was kidnapped in the late 1970s. “We will do our utmost until the day the kidnap victims are returned.”
On Friday, the minister attended the ceremony at which a monument was unveiled to pray for the return of the kidnap victims.
Attendees included Julie Turner, the US State Department’s special envoy for human rights issues in North Korea, who in February visited the site in Niigata where Yokota was abducted at the age of 13. She stressed that the United States, South Korea and Japan would rally their forces to increase pressure on North Korea.
In South Korea, fishermen and many others have been kidnapped by North Korea. About 500 people have not yet been repatriated. However, interest in the kidnapping issue is low in South Korea as it is seen as an obstacle to dialogue between the two Koreas, especially by leftists who are more conciliatory toward the North. Previously, successive South Korean governments were also reluctant to resolve the issue.
Seoul has made a policy shift since President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government took office in May 2022. At the Japan-US-South Korea summit in August last year, the three countries reaffirmed their commitment to addressing North Korean human rights issues, including the kidnappings. Then, in September, Seoul set up a new team under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Unification to tackle the issue of the South Korean abductees.
In February, a floral-patterned symbol was unveiled for a rescue effort for the kidnapped, and the wearing of symbolic blossom badges has spread.
“I wonder why it took so long, but hope has finally been born,” said a 77-year-old relative of Kim Young-nam who took part in the ceremony. “I want to see my brother again.”
