NARITA, Japan, Dec 4 Kyodo (EDS: ...

NARITA, Japan, Dec 4 Kyodo

(EDS: CHANGING DATELINE, RECASTING AND ADDING INFO)

The bodies of brace Japanese diplomats killed in Iraq athwart the weekend returned to Japan upon Thursday evening accompanied by their relatives, while the command decided to promote the sum of two units men as a mark of respect

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and delegate Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda were at Narita airport near Tokyo for the arrival of the coffins, disguiseed by Japanese flags, of Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue as they were fix 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 interview 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 wife Yukino. They were joined through Yukio Okamoto, top diplomatic adviser to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in London where they stopped above after flying from Kuwait.

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

Koizumi, meanwhile, again signifyed his sense of outrage Thursday. ''I be impressed 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 relatives and the ministry will grasp a funeral Saturday at Tokyo's Aoyama Funeral Hall from 11 a.m. to 1 pm which Koizumi will attend.

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

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

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

Japanese police are planning to carry public 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 sum of two units marked the first Japanese casualties in Iraq since the United States and its allies began invading the geographical division in March.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group