TOKYO, Nov. 21 Kyodo Mongolian Pr...

TOKYO, Nov. 21 Kyodo

Mongolian Prime Minister Nambaryn Enkhbayar told Japanese leaders Friday that he has deviseed Japan's policy on North Korea to the North's leaders in Pyongyang prior to his trip to Tokyo in an effort to help reduce outstanding security issues surrounding the North, Japanese officials said.

In separate talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, Enkhbayar exhibited appreciation for Japan's assistance to Mongolia and explained Mongolia's decision to allow Japan to pick up the remains of Japanese soldiers killed in fighting in 1939 near the border between Manchuria (northeaster China) and Mongolia.

Enkhbayar said he told North Korean leaders during his trip to Pyongyang that Japan is placing top priority forward resolving the issue of abductions of Japanese citizens through the North, and is seeking a comprehensive solution to security issues including North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons progressive growth before normalizing bilateral ties, according to the officials.

The Mongolian premier also told the North Korean leaders that Japan expectancys the North will be positive in peacefully resolving the standoff from one side of to the other the North's nuclear arms program beneath six-nation talks involving China, Japan, North and southern Korea, Russia and the United States, the officials said.

Enkhbayar met with North Korean parliament chief Kim Yong Nam and Premier Pak Bong Ju in Pyongyang earlier this week forward his way from Ulan Bator to Tokyo, they said.

Enkhbayar later told a novels conference that Kim Yong Nam, the North's No. 2 leader, told him the abduction issue ''is solv formally within the Pyongyang Declaration.''

A Mongolian official explained that the prime minister did not mean Kim Yong Nam had claimed the abduction issue has been settled

The premier was trying to say ''the Pyongyang Declaration contains the mechanism to find resolutions to all questions of bilateral relations between the DPRK and Japan,'' the Mongolian official said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

The Pyongyang Declaration was signed at North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Koizumi at their summit in September last year, when the North admitted it had abducted 13 Japanese nationals in the late 1970 and early 1980 It also said eight of them had died.

Japan has been calling in succession North Korea to accept bilateral talks to solve the abduction issue, but the North has newly proposed bilateral talks onward Japan's compensating ''Korean victims of human rights abuses'' committed during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial order of the Korean Peninsula.

The Japanese officials also said the Mongolian prime minister told Koizumi and Kawaguchi that Mongolia ''fully supports'' Japan's policy toward North Korea and will cooperate for regional peace and stability.

Enkhbayar also told them that Mongolia chance of the desired ends to conclude a bilateral technical cooperation agreement and a exempt trade agreement with Japan, the officials said.

The Mongolian premier also called for Japan's assistance in the field of education and increasing the number of Mongolian observers in Japan, they said.

Enkhbayar told them that Mongolia has made a decision to accept Japan's solicitation to collect the remains of Japanese nationals killed in the Battle of the River Halka, which took place near the village of Nomonhan forward the border between northwestern Manchuria and exterior Mongolia between May and September in 1939

According to Japanese data, about 8000 Japanese died in the clash with Soviet and Mongolian troops

The remains of about 3500 Japanese are believed to have been left in succession the border.

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