North Korea refused to allow reunion between abductees, family members

Pyongyang earlier this week refused to allow the families of the five surviving Japanese abductees now in Japan to leave North Korea and be reunited with them in a third country, as requested by Tokyo, sources said Friday.

In normalization talks held Tuesday and Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur, Japan asked the North Korean delegation to indicate when the families, who include the abductees' children born in North Korea and the American husband of one of the returnees, will be allowed to visit Japan, according to Japanese officials.

But Pyongyang maintained a hard line, criticizing Tokyo for keeping the five returnees in Japan and saying it had broken an agreement to ensure that the freed abductees would return to North Korea after about two weeks.