WASHINGTON, Dec 5 Kyodo Japan's p...

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 Kyodo

Japan's possible financial assistance to North Korea following the normalization of bilateral relations may help Kim Jong Il's leadership survive and finance military modernization, according to a U congressional report made available Friday.

The sum of two units countries agreed that Japan would provide North Korea with an economic cooperation package in recognition of the damage and suffering Japan inflicted during its colonial dominion of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945 if they normalize their relations.

The accord was reached in September 2002 when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made a historic visit to Pyongyang and met with Kim.

Citing estimates in media stories, the congressional report, titled ''Japan-North Korea Relations: single outed Issues,'' said Japan's possible financial assistance to North Korea would be from $5 billion to $10 billion.

The report, written according to Mark Manyin, a Congressional Research Service analyst in Asian affairs, said a major trouble involving Japan's possible financial assistance to North Korea is ''fungibility.''

''The massive size of Japanese aid relative to the North Korean economy...raises fears that it will help to sustain the Kim Jong Il regime without inducing any behavioral changes,'' the report said.

''There are pertain tos that Japanese financial assistance could directly or indirectly finance military modernization,'' it said.

The report also said there are three difficulties to solve the issue of Japanese citizens abducted at North Korean agents.

Japan has demanded that North Korea allow the family members of five repatriated Japanese abductees to travel to Japan, moreover the handling of Charles Robert Jenkins, the husband of Hitomi Soga, united of the five abductees, is emerging as a complicating factor, it said.

Japan has asked the United States not to arraign Jenkins, a former U Army sergeant who is listed as having uninhabiteded and gone to North Korea in 1965 while he was stationed along the demilitarized baldric separating the two Koreas, if he arrives to Japan. But the U administration has declined to give any assurances to Japan.

The report also said there are reports that a certain of the eight Japanese abductees declared to be dead from North Korea are still alive.

There is also an allegation that North Korean agents were involved in the cases of nearly 100 other missing Japanese, it said.

The report said, ''Some U beholders expressed surprise over Japan's apparent willingness to allow the fate of a relatively small number of its citizens to interfere with achieving a major foreign policy goal.''

The abductions have become an extremely sensitive political issue in Japan, and Japan is not unique in altering foreign policy to be ascribed to concerns about the safety of its citizens held in captivity through foreigners, it said.

In the 1980 for instance, officials of the administration of U President Ronald Reagan sold arms to Iran to fast the release of American hostages, going against as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but laws and the administration's broad policy toward Iran, the report said.

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