TOKYO — The Islamic State group will release a statement “soon” on two Japanese hostages it has threatened to kill sometime on Friday if Japan doesn’t pay a $200 million ransom, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported Friday.
Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida listens to questions from reporters at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's official residence in Tokyo this morning. Mr Kishida said Friday that Japan was making all efforts for the swift release of two men held captive by the Islamic State group, but added that there was no change in Tokyo's stance of not giving in to terrorism. (Reuters photo)
The Japanese people are infidels at war with the Islamic State group, a spokesman for the group said on an Internet call with NHK. When asked about negotiations with the Japanese government for the release of the two men, the spokesman said it wasn't a good question, NHK reported.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declined to comment on the NHK report, saying that Japan would continue to do its utmost for the release of the hostages. The deadline for Japan to respond to Islamic State's ransom demand is fast approaching, with Mr Suga saying Japan considers it to be Friday at 12.50pm Bangkok time.
The hostage crisis risks undermining Abe's push for Japan to play a bigger role in world affairs and further erode support for his effort to ease pacifist constraints in the country's constitution to broaden the role for the nation's military. Opinion polls show a majority of Japanese are opposed to bolstering the military, even as China becomes more assertive in a territorial dispute with Japan.
The Islamic State group made its threat in a video released Jan. 20 showing a knife-wielding masked militant between the two kneeling men threatening to kill them within 72 hours unless Japan pays the ransom -- the same amount that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged in aid this week to nations fighting Islamic State during a six-day Middle East trip.
No payment
Junko Ishido, mother of Kenji Goto, one of two Japanese men being held by Islamist militants, answers questions during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Friday. Mrs Ishido pleaded for her son's release and urged Tokyo to pay a $200 million ransom hours before a deadline expires. (AFP photo)
Mr Abe told UK Prime Minister David Cameron by phone on Thursday that he stood by his country's commitment not to pay ransoms, according to Mr Cameron's spokeswoman Helen Bower. Group of Eight leaders pledged in 2013 not to pay terrorists to free hostages.
Even so, Mr Abe vowed this week to use "all means necessary" to free the men - self-styled security contractor Haruna Yukawa and war correspondent Kenji Goto - even as he said Japan would never cave into terrorism. Japan has reached out for international assistance, and has set up an emergency headquarters in Amman, Jordan.
Mr Yukawa, 42, went to the Middle East last year as he sought to reinvent himself as a soldier-of-fortune after a failed business career, a suicide attempt and the death of his wife, he wrote on his personal blog in April.
Captured in Syria
His new career as self-styled security contractor led him in July to Syria, where he was captured by the Islamic State group, prompting Mr Goto, a devout Christian and acquaintance of Mr Yukawa, to head to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo seeking his release, according to Kyodo news agency.
Mr Goto, born in 1967, ended up himself a hostage facing the same death sentence, after leaving a video message in which he said his fate was his own responsibility.
Mr Goto's mother, Junko Ishido, issued a statement to reporters in Tokyo on Friday pleading for the Japanese government to save her son's life, adding that Japan is not an enemy of Islamic countries.
"For the past three days I have been able to do nothing but cry with sorrow," Mrs Ishido wrote. "Kenji always said he wanted to save the lives of children in war zones. He reported from wars from a neutral perspective."