NARITA, Japan, Dec 5 Kyodo (EDS: ...

NARITA, Japan, Dec 5 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING PLAN TO DECORATE THE SLAIN DIPLOMATS IN 8TH PARA)

The bodies of pair Japanese diplomats killed in Iraq from one side of to the other the weekend returned to Japan onward Thursday evening accompanied by their relatives, while the rule decided to promote the sum of two units men as a mark of respect

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and substitute Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda were at Narita airport near Tokyo for the arrival of the coffins, veiled by Japanese flags, of Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue as they were stake down from a Japan Airlines plane.

Oku 45 and Inoue, 30 were gunn down last Saturday near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit while traveling to a reconstruction conversation Their Iraqi driver, Jerjees Sulaiman Zura, 54 was also killed in the attack.

Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Kazunori Tanaka was accompanying the 11 relatives, who included Oku's wife Emiko and Inoue's pregnant wife Yukino. They were joined from Yukio Okamoto, top diplomatic adviser to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in London where they stopped through after flying from Kuwait.

A tearful Kawaguchi, arrangeed in black along with other ministry officials, quot Emiko as telling her, ''I'm imperious of what my husband has done.'' The foreign minister said she had replied, ''So are we.''

Koizumi, meanwhile, again give vent toed his sense of outrage Thursday. ''I be wrought up anger over this cruel attack,'' he told reporters. ''It is difficult to find words to say to their devastated relatives at the moment''

The Foreign Ministry posthumously promot Oku and Inoue to ambassador and first secretary, respectively.

The management is expected to decide Friday to grant decorations to the slain diplomats, regulation sources said.

The relatives and the ministry will clutch a funeral at Tokyo's Aoyama Funeral Hall from 11 a.m. to 1 pm Saturday which Koizumi will attend.

Earlier Thursday, the Foreign Ministry released three pictures showing the diplomats' black car riddled with bullet covers The two victims were traveling in it when they were ambushed from unknown attackers.

There were about 30 covers likely caused by submachine fire-arms mostly on the left side of the vehicle, ministry officials said. The photos were provided by means of the U.S.-led occupation forces, the Coalition Provisional Authority, in Iraq.

According to witnesses and local police in Iraq, the car was block uped by three or four other vehicles and fired in succession from another car driving alongside.

Japanese police are planning to carry not at home autopsies on the diplomats and check the vehicle.

Oku was a counselor dispatched to Iraq from the Japanese Embassy in London, and Inoue was a third secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad. The deaths of the pair marked the first Japanese casualties in Iraq since the United States and its allies began invading the political division in March.

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