TOKYO, March 7 Kyodo Former Prime...

TOKYO, March 7 Kyodo

Former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said Friday he has urg Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda to take again talks to establish ties with North Korea as pretty soon as possible.

Murayama told reporters that Fukuda had said the door for dialogue is expand to North Korea but the sway sees it as difficult to restart bilateral talks quick because it wants to talk with the United States first.

Murayama made the plea in his capacity as the head a civic assemblage on normalizing ties.

He said his clump urged the government in a note to resume the normalization talks in line with the Pyongyang Declaration, a put of agreements signed according to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in September last year to stabilize the situation upon the Korean Peninsula.

Murayama said he handed the literal sense to Fukuda in their meeting at the premier's office.

After serving as premier from 1994 to 1996 Murayama visited North Korea in 1999 leading a delegation of lawmakers to talk about the possibility of normalization with officials of the North's Workers Party of Korea.

Murayama formerly headed the Social Democratic Party which used to maintain choke ties with the North's party and retired as a lawmaker in 2000

Murayama's civic dispose mainly consists of academics and former dominion officials.

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