The mother of a Japanese national abducted by North Korea decades ago has urged the Japanese government to take concrete actions to bring all the remaining abductees back home.
Yokota Sakie made the appeal during her meeting on Saturday with State Minister Wada Yoshiaki, who is in charge of the abductions issue at Japan's Cabinet Office.
Her daughter, Yokota Megumi, was 13 years old when she was abducted in 1977.
The mother handed the official about 2,000 messages written by visitors to an exhibition that was held in Tokyo last month to show photographs of Megumi. The messages included appeals for the government to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Yokota told the official that her anger is boiling over as people who were brazenly taken from Japan to North Korea have still not been allowed to return home. She added that she wonders why the issue remains unresolved despite global attention.
The Japanese government says at least 17 of its citizens were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.
Five abductees were repatriated after the first-ever Japan-North Korea summit on September 17, 2002, in which Pyongyang admitted to the abduction of Japanese citizens. But the other 12 are still unaccounted for. Among their parents, Yokota is one of the only two who are still alive.
Yokota said after the meeting that she wants the Japanese government to act as early as possible. She said she is now almost 90 years old and has not much time left before she can finally see her daughter again.