Time is running out: ISIS put out a video Tuesday giving the Japanese government 72 hours to pay $200 million, or else Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawalike other ISIS captives before themwill be killed. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday that his government estimates the deadline will come at 2:50 p.m. Friday, Tokyo time (12:50 a.m. ET).
Until then, he said, Japanese officials are trying to save them. Suga said his government will do its utmost to communicate with ISIS on the fate of Goto and Yukawa through a third party, like another nation’s government or a local tribe. He didn’t say whether Japan would be willing to pay any ransom.
Absent such a private back-and-forth, the Japanese official voiced his government’s stance publicly, including its defense of a proposed aid package, also tabbed at $200 million, to help those who are “contending” with ISIS, according to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe has defended the aid package as needed to build up “human capacities, infrastructure and so on,” yet ISIS denounced it anyway in its recent video.
“Japan’s measures are absolutely not intending to kill Muslim people, unlike what the hostage takers claim,” Suga said Wednesday. “We strongly urge them not to harm the two Japanese nationals and immediately release them.”
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Abe has responded by defending the proposed aid and blasting ISIS’ threat against two of his nation’s citizens as “unacceptable.”
“I feel angry about it,” he said Tuesday. “I strongly urge them to immediately release the hostages without harming them.”
CNN’s Yoko Wakatsuki reported from Tokyo, and CNN’s Greg Botelho wrote this report from Atlanta. CNN’s Will Ripley, Jethro Mullen and Junko Ogura contributed to this report.
