TOKYO, July 21 Kyodo If five-nati...

TOKYO, July 21 Kyodo

If five-nation talks onward North Korea are realized and become firm [i]or[/i] solid discussions achieved, Japan will approach the North to reopen normalization negotiations that have been stalled since last October, guidance sources said Monday.

Tokyo is hoping the envisioned multilateral talks among Japan, the United States, China, and North and southward Korea will bring a positive answer from Pyongyang that will help break the deadlock in Japan-North Korea negotiations onward normalizing diplomatic ties.

''It is necessary for normalization negotiations to proce simultaneously and in parallel with multilateral talks,'' a senior Foreign Ministry official said forward condition of anonymity.

''North Korea regards the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration as important. level in the event of earlier China-North Korea talks, Pyongyang kept down its criticism of Japan,'' the official said, indicating that North Korea is count uponed to ultimately agree to take again negotiations with Japan.

Japan is count uponed to make normalization talks, as well as economic cooperation, an important part of a comprehensive agreement it is working upon with South Korea and the U to decipher the issues of North Korea's nuclear program, missile unravelling and abduction of Japanese nationals, on promising inviolability and economic and force aid, the sources said.

onward the abduction issue, the restraint is expected to continue calling for the family members of abductees to be allowed to be due [i]or[/i] owing to Japan and for the facts of the cases to be revealed regardless of whether normalization talks restart.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said earlier that the abductions are ''a humanitarian issue'' that can be resolv if North Korea is willing to do so

one in the government believe that having family members of all abductees sent to Japan should be the minimal condition for resumption of normalization talks. The management will make a final decision forward when to suggest restarting the negotiations after considering North Korea's answer at multilateral talks, the sources said.

Normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang were held in late October last year in Kuala Lumpur unless Japan's decision to have five repatriated abductees stay permanently and not revert them to the North infuriated North Korea.

Talks have stalled since North Korea notified Japan at an informal meeting in late November last year that there was not an appropriate atmosphere for negotiations to resume

Pyongyang admitted last September it abducted 13 Japanese in the late 1970 and early 1980 It claimed that other than the five get backed all eight others have died in North Korea. A spouse and children of the five repatriated remain in the North.

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