Never in Japan, can kin 'return' here?

OSAKA -- Many Japanese newspapers, magazines and TV stations are reporting that the offspring of five Japanese who were abducted to North Korea in 1978 and repatriated in October 2002 will be "returning" to Japan if North Korea lets them leave.

But "returning" can hardly be the appropriate term for people born and raised in North Korea, who carry North Korean passports and who have never set foot in Japan.

The Japanese media are using the term "kikoku suru," which means to return to one's country. But whatever the legal arguments for claiming the children are Japanese because their parents are Japanese, the term seems off the mark, said Lee Young Hwa of the Rescue the North Korean People Urgent Action Network (RENK). "North Korea is the only country these children know."