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Kim Young-nam, a South Korean who married the Japanese abduction victim Megumi Yokota in North Korea, was quoted Monday as admitting that his wife¡¯s cremated remains may have been mixed with those of others. Kim upset many in Japan last week by denouncing Tokyo for claiming that repatriated remains were not those of Yokota but of two other people.
The head of an association of families with relatives kidnapped by the North, Choi Sung-yong, quoted a statement from Kim's sister Young-ja, who was reunited with her brother after 28 years last week in North Korea and has since returned. Kim reportedly told his sister that crematoria in the North are primitive, so there was a chance Yokota¡¯s remains were accidentally mixed with those of another before they were sent to Japan.
North Korea has insisted that Japanese DNA test results on the remains are part of a strategy to discredit the Stalinist country and refused to admit even the possibility that the remains were mixed up. Observers speculate whether Kim¡¯s reported statement reflects an official change in Pyongyang¡¯s position.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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