SADO, NIIGATA PREF. – Former North Korea abductee Hitomi Soga says Japan has the best chance in a long time to settle the abductees issue once and for all, in her first public comments since North Korea launched an inquiry into the matter earlier this month.

“I feel like things have finally gotten going again,” said Soga, 55, speaking in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, where she now lives.

Soga and her then 46-year-old mother, Miyoshi, were abducted by North Korean agents in 1978. Pyongyang released Soga nearly 12 years ago, together with four other surviving abductees, but it said her mother never arrived in North Korea.

“This time, I wish for a complete settlement so that the homecoming of abduction victims, including my mother and other missing Japanese, will come true,” she told an audience of about 160 people.

In August 1978, Soga and her mother were kidnapped on their way home from shopping in the town of Mano, which is now a suburb of Sado city. She later married an American defector and the couple had two children.

Looking back on her 24 years in North Korea, Soga’s voice trembled.

“Every time I heard the news about visits to North Korea by Japanese politicians, I used to feel hope — in vain — that I might be able to return,” she said. “It was very tough to wait.”

She urged the government to resolve the abductions episode without further delay, saying that abductees remain alive in North Korea and wish to return.

Soga also said she hopes progress comes soon, given her mother’s age, if she remains alive.

“If she returns, I will let her do all that she wants because when I was a child I caused her hardship,” she said.