The group representing the relatives of Japanese who have been abducted by North Korea named Vice Chairman Shigeo Iizuka as its new leader Saturday, replacing Shigeru Yokota.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Yokota, 75, has served as chief of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea since its inception in March 1997. He has recently said he wants to step down due to age.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Yokota, whose daughter Megumi was kidnapped by Pyongyang in 1977 when she was 13, has been considered a symbol of the group's campaign to retrieve the abductees, but he was hospitalized for a serious illness for two months in 2005 and had his gallbladder removed in September this year.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Iizuka, 69, is an elder brother of Yaeko Taguchi, who was taken to North Korea in 1978 when she was 22. He has supported Yokota as acting chairman of the group.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Iizuka has been to the United States twice to appeal for help on the abduction issue and has also attended a session of the United Nations human rights committee in Geneva. </PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Yokota said he was relieved by the decision. </PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'It's a weight off my mind,' he said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Iizuka meanwhile pledged to carry the torch for the abductees.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'I will make utmost efforts so that all of the abductees can return home in one or two years,' he told reporters.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Yokota and Taguchi were among 13 Japanese nationals that North Korea has admitted taking in the 1970s and 1980s. But they are also among the eight that the North insists died there. The other five were returned to Japan in 2002, and the Japanese government is suspicious of North Korea's claims about the fates of the other eight. </PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The government is continuing to urge Pyongyang to reinvestigate the abductees' whereabouts together with four others Tokyo officially recognizes as abductees.</PARAGRAPH> <SUBHEAD> Nuke teams get ready</SUBHEAD> <PARAGRAPH> SEOUL –

Japanese and South Korean officials and nuclear experts are preparing to visit North Korea next week to monitor the disabling of the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, sources close to the six-way talks on the North's denuclearization have said.

The monitors will join monitoring teams from the United States, China and Russia who are already in place to monitor the politically sensitive work in Yongbyon, the sources said.

Work to disable North Korea's three nuclear facilities began earlier this month after a denuclearization-for-aid deal was reached in the second phase the six party talks in February.