The brother of a 13-year-old girl who was one of a number of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s pressed the international community at a gathering at the United Nations on Wednesday to keep a spotlight on the issue of those forcibly taken from their countries.
"The abductions of Japanese by North Korea are not random incidents caused by a single spy, this is international terrorism," Takuya Yokota said at the Japanese government-sponsored symposium.
Yokota's older sister, Megumi, was taken while on her way home from middle school in Niigata Prefecture in 1977 and is among 17 Japanese confirmed by Tokyo to have been snatched by North Korean agents. North Korea admitted in 2002 to having abducted Japanese.