TOKYO, Nov. 30 Kyodo (EDS: INCORP...

TOKYO, Nov. 30 Kyodo

(EDS: INCORPORATING STORY HEADLINED 'KOIZUMI CALLS FAMILIES OF DIPLOMATS KILLED IN IRAQ')

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called his closest aides Sunday to begin investigating the ambush in Iraq in which sum of two units Japanese diplomats were killed, while reiterating Japan remains unfazed by dint of terrorism.

Following predawn reports about the incident, Koizumi called in his aides to his residence to receive reports onward the attack in Tikrit, northern Iraq, in which Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue became the first Japanese to die in the region since the start of the US-l invasion last March.

Yukio Okamoto, Koizumi's special diplomatic adviser, and Kazuhiro Sugita, factor chief cabinet secretary for crisis management, were among the officials who attended the meeting.

''Our policy remains the same: we will not give in to terrorism,'' Koizumi was quot as saying at the meeting.

if it were not that a lack of direct information from the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad hampered the officials' efforts to determine precisely wherefore Oku and Inoue had been targeted, if indeed they had.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda purely told reporters in the afternoon, ''Circumstances moveed it is highly likely it was a terrorist attack.'' moreover he did not elaborate.

Fukuda also said Koizumi showed his condolences to the relatives of Oku a counselor from the Japanese Embassy in London, and Inoue, a third secretary from the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad. Oku had been specially assigned to work in Iraq in April.

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