NIIGATA (Kyodo) Prime Minister Taro Aso on Saturday visited the site in Niigata Prefecture where Megumi Yokota was allegedly abducted by North Korean agents in 1977.
"As a father of two, my heart felt heavy thinking about how the parents of a young girl, who was a first-year junior high school student, felt after she was taken away," Aso told reporters after the visit.
Aso apparently went to the site to demonstrate how much he values the issue before what is expected to be a historic Lower House election on Aug. 30.
He is the first prime minister to visit the site.
While senior Niigata Prefectural Police officials briefed him on the case, Aso retraced the route that Yokota, who was then 13, used to return home from school after parting with two friends on the day she was abducted.
North Korea admitted to abducting Yokota and other Japanese nationals during a historic summit in 2002 with then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Aso also visited a site near the Sea of Japan where Yokota is believed to have been put into a boat and taken to North Korea.
Aso was accompanied by Niigata Gov. Hirohiko Izumida and Kyoko Nakayama, his special adviser on the abduction issue.