S/ Yokota Takuya, Abductee family representative / I have an overwhelming sense of anxiety and concern and strongly feel I cannot accept the idea that having liaison offices would be reasonably effective. I want the top leaders of the Japanese government to be deeply aware that if we are complicit in (North Korea's) buying time based on lies, reunions with our families will not happen.

Yokota Takuya, the head of a group representing the families of Japanese victims of abduction by North Korea, criticized remarks made by Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in January that setting up liaison offices in the two countries would be reasonably effective.

The 56-year-old is a younger brother of Yokota Megumi, a symbolic figure in the abduction issue who was forcibly taken by North Korea in 1977 when she was 13.

The abductee family group and their supporters met in Tokyo on February 16 to decide on their policy for future activities.

They agreed to ask the Japanese government to take urgent action to resolve the issue as family members waiting to be reunited with their loved ones are getting older.

They said that returning all abductees while their parents' generation is still alive should be a condition for providing humanitarian assistance to North Korea.