(Adds fresh Cheney quote) By Caren Bohan TOKYO, Feb 22 (Reuters) - He didn't have time to meet Japan's defence minister, who has questioned the Iraq war, but U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney squeezed in a chat on Thursday with a couple whose daughter was kidnapped by North Korea decades ago. In a nod to the importance of the abductees issue for Japan, Cheney met Sakie and Shigeru Yokota, whose 13-year-old daughter Megumi was kidnapped one November day 30 years ago. Megumi Yokota is one of several Japanese who were abducted by North Korean agents to help train spies in language and culture. Their tragic tale is known to almost every Japanese but has garnered relatively little attention in the United States, despite unflagging efforts by the relatives to take their campaign abroad. "I can identify, in fact the whole world can identify, with the emotion of this tragedy," Cheney was quoted by a U.S. official as telling the Yokotas. "We'll do what we can to help." The couple gave Cheney a letter asking U.S. President George W. Bush not to remove North Korea from Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism until the abductees dispute is settled, Kyodo news agency reported. Sakie Yokota last year met Bush and testified before U.S. lawmakers. "I'm just one mother, trying to get her child, who's been caught up in a kind of no-man's land, back to the place where she belongs," she told Reuters in November. The United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia agreed in a deal forged in Beijing last week that Pyongyang would receive fuel aid in return for closing and eventually disabling its nuclear facilities. The agreement also says the United States will begin the process of removing North Korea from the list of states Washington believes are sponsoring terrorism. REFUSING AID Abe has refused to give aid to North Korea unless there is progress towards settling the dispute over the abductees -- an emotive topic for many Japanese and one central to Abe's own political agenda. Cheney expressed understanding for Tokyo's tough stance during his visit, but critics have said Japan's position could isolate it if progress is made towards denuclearisation. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted in 2002 that Pyongyang's agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens. Five have since returned to Japan. Pyongyang has said that Megumi Yokota hanged herself in 1994 and that the other seven are also dead. But Tokyo wants better information about the fate of the eight and others it says were also kidnapped, and insists any survivors be sent home. In talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other Japanese leaders on Wednesday, Cheney sought to reassure Washington's close ally that a U.S. troop increase in Iraq would quell violence, and to coordinate policies towards North Korea. Having wrapped up his visit to Japan, which has backed the U.S. strategy in Iraq, Cheney left for Guam and was to head later for Australia, where he will meet Prime Minister John Howard, another supporter of the war. The trip came as Britain this week announced a timetable for the withdrawal of a quarter of its troops from Iraq.
