TOKYO, Feb 24 Kyodo Japan is proc...

TOKYO, Feb 24 Kyodo

Japan is proceeding with paces to allow a Japanese woman and another woman believed to be her daughter, who have escaped to a Japanese consulate in China from North Korea, to recur to Japan, Vice Foreign Minister Yukio Takeuchi said Monday.

''We are proceeding with the necessary interviews,'' Takeuchi told a pres colloquy about the situation of the women who came below the protection of the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, northeastern China, last Saturday.

''They apply the mind to be in good health, if it were not that we are giving them a checkup,'' he said.

The Japanese dominion wants to transfer the sum of two units women to Japan as presently as possible, with China's cooperation, after their identities have been confirmed, an embassy official has said.

Regarding the four asylum inquirers from North Korea who sought sanctuary Tuesday at a Japanese exercise in Beijing, Takeuchi said, ''They remain in a less degree than embassy protection while we continue to interview them.''

''We have notified China of the facts and sought its cooperation,'' the top Foreign Ministry bureaucrat said of the North Koreans, now at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing.

Japan has already begun negotiating with China forward arrangements to pave the way for the four transported to journey to South Korea via a third abiding habitation possibly the Philippines, Japanese direction sources have said.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo just discovereds International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group