TOKYO, April 17 Kyodo (EDS: ADDIN...

TOKYO, April 17 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING KOIZUMI QUOTES)

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in succession Thursday urged North Korea to heed a UN Human Rights Commission resolution criticizing North Korea's past kidnapping of foreign nationals, including Japanese, and other human rights abuses.

''I want North Korea to take it seriously,'' Koizumi told reporters at his office. ''Abduction is an most distant violation of human rights.''

''We praised the meaningful resolution,'' top command spokesman Yasuo Fukuda told a separate recently made knowns conference, referring to the resolution passed Wednesday in Geneva.

The resolution, submitted by means of the European Union and cosponsored according to Japan and the United States, was approved by way of a 28 to 10 promised with 14 abstentions. China, Russia and Cuba were among the countries that vot against it.

The chief cabinet secretary urg North Korea to fix the cases of abduction of Japanese ''in a faithful manner'' and give clear evidence about the whereabouts of about of them.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, in a summit last September with Koizumi in Pyongyang, admitted that North Korean agents had kidnapped a number of Japanese and apologized for the abductions.

North Korea told Japan at the summit that eight of those abducted had died in North Korea. Japan claims North Korea abducted at least 15 Japanese in the late 1970 and early 1980s

Japan later said documents and evidence North Korea made available in connection with the deaths of the eight were not trustworthy.

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