10 July 2004	Saturday	21 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

JAKARTA, July 9: An alleged US army defector to North Korea had an emotional reunion in Jakarta on Friday with the Japanese woman whom he married after she was abducted to Pyongyang.

Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, and wife Hitomi Soga hugged and kissed each other after he and their daughters Mika, 21, and Belinda, 18, left the plane which brought them to the Indonesian capital from Pyongyang.

"I am sorry," a tearful Soga, 45, speaking in Japanese, told the husband whom she left 21 months ago when the communist state allowed her to return to Japan. Japanese TV footage showed all four in tears before they were driven to a luxury city centre hotel.

Jenkins, who like his daughters wore a pin with a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, smiled as four children in traditional Indonesian dress presented the family with bouquets at the hotel.

Asked how he felt, he replied: "Happy." When asked his reaction to being in the outside world, Jenkins waved and responded: "No comment." He is believed to be making his first trip outside North Korea since he disappeared near the border with South Korea in 1965.

The third-country meeting, paid for by Japan, avoids the risk of the United States prosecuting Jenkins. He was an army sergeant when he disappeared while on patrol near the demilitarised zone in January 1965.

Indonesia does not have an extradition treaty with the United States while Japan would have a treaty obligation to hand him over to the US. Soga, who was allowed to leave for Japan along with four other kidnap victims in Oct 2002 following a landmark summit between Japan and North Korea, has said she wants to bring her family to Japan to settle permanently.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, "I will try to have Mrs. Soga and her family live together in Japan." -AFP