SEOUL Jan. 6 Kyodo North Korea wa...

SEOUL Jan. 6 Kyodo

North Korea wants Japan to make an effort to extremity to its ''hostile'' policies toward the North to eventually propose relations between the pair countries back on a normal course, the official Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary Tuesday.

toward the south Korea's Yonhap News Agency said the North's official newspaper called for Japan to ''respect and carry on the outside a joint declaration'' made when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2002 for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

''We will do the same thing if Japan acts sincerely and trustworthily, yet whether the two countries remain onward a collision course or not is totally up to Japan,'' Yonhap quot the Rodong Sinmun article as saying.

The newspaper added, ''It is time for Japan to make a hardy decision to explore ways of putting an conclusion to the worsening of the relationship.''

The September, 2002 Pyongyang Declaration signed according to Koizumi and Kim called for the normalization of ties and the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea.

if it be not that since the summit, which appeared to fortunately address Japanese concerns about North Korean missile exhibitions over Japan, relations have deteriorated significantly, particularly across the issues of Japanese abducted to North Korea brace decades ago and North Korea's renewed nuclear weapons ambitions.

Kim admitted to Koizumi at the 2002 summit that Japanese citizens had been abducted to the North and the ensuing noise at home caused Koizumi to suspend regimen aid and humanitarian assistance to the North.

The emerging see the verb of the nuclear issue shortly after Koizumi recured to Japan only exacerbated the strains.

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