The Japanese government plans to add another person to its list of citizens abducted to North Korea.

Japanese media say the Tokyo government has begun final preparations to officially recognize Kyoko Matsumoto who disappeared in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture in 1977 as an abductee taken to North Korea.

Japan has so far recognized 16 of its nationals in eleven cases as having been kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and '80s.

If Matsumoto is officially recognized as an abductee at a meeting of relevant government officials, she will be the 17th on the list of Japanese kidnapped by the North.

According to Japanese authorities, Matsumoto was taken away by two unidentified men on her way to a knitting class near her home when she was 29 years old.

The Japanese police quoted an eyewitness as saying that a ship, believed to belong to North Korean agents, was anchored near the coast at the time she went missing.

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said that during diplomatic normalization talks with North Korea in 2002, Tokyo asked Pyongyang to respond to the abduction allegations.

North Korea admitted in the same year to having abducted 13 Japanese nationals. It allowed five to return to Japan, saying the others had died.

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