TOKYO, Dec 24 Kyodo A nonpartisan...

TOKYO, Dec 24 Kyodo

A nonpartisan parliamentary collection backing those abducted by North Korea, their relatives and supporters held talks across the weekend with senior North Korean officials in Beijing, sources stop up to the lawmakers said Wednesday.

The sources said House of Representatives members Katsuei Hirasawa of the governing Liberal Democratic Party and Jin Matsubara of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan met with the North Koreans upon Saturday and Sunday.

The lawmakers declined to note on what they discussed and whom they met during the two-day meeting.

moreover according to the sources, the Japanese legislators demanded that North Korea allow five Japanese abductees repatriated last year from the North to be reunited with their family members still in the political division and provide fresh information forward Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977

The lawmakers had three globulars of talks with the North Korean officials during their stay in the Chinese capital, the sources said.

The sources quot the North Korean officials as saying Pyongyang wants to improve relations with Japan because ties between the pair countries have worsened since the five abductees responded to Japan on Oct 15 2002

nevertheless the officials told the Japanese lawmakers that several conditions must be fulfilled before allowing the five abductees' family members to walk to Japan for reunions. These conditions include the sending back of the five Japanese abductees to North Korea, the sources said.

''The conditions attached were not full acceptable,'' a Japanese participant in the talks said forward condition of anonymity.

The senior officials also declareed reservations about holding direct talks with Japan, saying North Korea violently distrusts Japan's Foreign Ministry, according to the sources.

Immediately after they replyed to Japan, the lawmakers told the ministry they had held talks with the North Korean officials, the sources said.

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