Five Japanese back in their homeland after being abducted by North Korean agents 24 years ago say they would wait in Japan to be reunited with their children.
That decision could further chill Japan's relations with Pyongyang, which says Tokyo agreed to send the five back to North Korea after a brief visit. They have been in Japan since October.
The fate of the abductees, who Pyongyang says are the only survivors from more than a dozen Japanese kidnapped decades ago to train spies, has gripped Japan since North Korea confessed to the kidnappings in September.
"The most important thing (decided) at our meeting was that we will stay in Japan and wait for our families to return to Japan," abductee Yasushi Chimura, 47, said on Thursday in the northern city of Niigata at the first joint news conference by the five since a brief meeting with media when they came home two months ago.
"The current situation is complicated and Japan-North Korea negotiations are deadlocked, but our intention will not change," Chimura said, quoting from a letter from the five to Koizumi.
"We ardently hope the Japanese government will steadfastly pursue negotiations with a consistent attitude," he added.
The five - two couples and a woman, Hitomi Soga, who is married to an alleged U.S. defector still in Pyongyang -- had met on Wednesday to exchange views on their plight and that of their seven Korean-born children, now in their teens and twenties.
In a highly symbolic move, all five appeared without the small lapel badges featuring late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung that they have worn since arriving in Japan.
Japan resumed talks with North Korea on establishing diplomatic ties after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il apologised for the kidnappings at a September summit with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
But an initial round of talks stalled over Tokyo's demand that the children of the five be brought to Japan and over the issue of North Korea's nuclear arms programme.
Government officials said they would keep working to bring the seven children home.
Despite its hard line on the abductees and their children, Japan, along with South Korea, has stressed the need for dialogue with Pyongyang, while Washington has taken a tougher stance.
That equation could change after Thursday, when South Korea picks a new president in an election that has become a referendum on ties with the North and the United States.