Special envoy hopeful about release of hostage, pilot 

Japan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yasuhide Nakayama, left, answers a reporter’s question in Amman, Jordan

A Japanese envoy in Jordan expressed hope that both Japanese hostage Kenji Goto and a Jordanian pilot held by Islamic militants will return home “with a smile on their faces,” as questions rose yesterday over the government’s handling of the crisis.
In the Jordanian capital, Amman, Deputy Foreign Minister Yasuhide Nakayama seemed determined, saying he believed there were “firm ties” between Japan and Jordan.
“I hope we can all firmly work hard and join hands to cooperate, and for the two countries (Japan and Jordan) to cooperate, in order for us to see the day when the Jordanian pilot and our Japanese national Mr. Goto, can both safely return to their own countries with a smile on their faces,” Nakayama, a lawmaker send to coordinate efforts in Amman to save two Japanese hostages of the Islamic State group, said late Monday night.
It was the first mention by a Japanese official of Jordanian pilot 1st Lt. Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh, who has been held by the extremist Islamic State group after crashing in December. It wasn’t clear when the pilot’s possible release had entered the picture.
The issue of a prisoner swap is sensitive, given Jordanian concern over the pilot, and Nakayama emerged from the Japanese Embassy yesterday with no new updates.
“There are other parties involved, so I don’t want to comment on details of the negotiations,” he said.
Goto, a journalist, was seized in late October in Syria, apparently while trying to rescue 42-year-­old Haruna Yukawa, an adventurer who was captured by the militants last summer.
Over the weekend, an unverified video surfaced showing a still photo of Goto, 47, holding what appears to be a photo of Yukawa’s body. It included a recording of a voice claiming to be Goto, saying his captors wanted the release of Sajida al-Rashawi, an Iraqi woman sentenced to death in Jordan for involvement in a suicide bombing that killed 60 people.
The message retracted a demand for payment of USD200 million in ransom for the two Japanese, made in an earlier online message, and said Yukawa had been killed. It threatened to kill Goto unless al-Rashawi was released.
Japanese officials are treating the video released over the weekend as authentic and thus accepting the likelihood that Yukawa was killed. However, the new message varied greatly from previous videos released by the Islamic State group, and The Associated Press could not verify its contents and whether they actually reflect the group’s demands.
Securing the release of al-Rashawi would be a propaganda coup for the Islamic State, enabling the group to reaffirm links to al-Qaida in Iraq. Al-Rashawi fled but was captured after her explosive belt failed to detonate in the attack in Jordan. She pleaded not guilty. Mari Yamaguchi and  Elaine Kurtenbach, Tokyo , AP