TOKYO, Feb 19 Kyodo The Japanese ...

TOKYO, Feb 19 Kyodo

The Japanese guidance is planning to discuss with China the options for four North Korean refugee who noteed a Japanese school in Beijing to appeal for political asylum Tuesday, and is leaning toward sending them to a third fatherland government officials indicated Wednesday.

The plan is based upon the judgment that it would be difficult to grant them asylum if they do not have any links to Japan, according to a senior Foreign Ministry official.

In the morning, Mitoji Yabunaka, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Kenji Hiramatsu, director of the ministry's North-East Asia Division, and other senior ministry officials discussed in what way to respond to the case, according to ministry officials.

The senior officials confirmed Japan's position is to accept asylum-seekers if they have Japanese nationality and if they have connections with Japan, so as being former Korean residents in Japan, they said.

The senior officials also agreed that if they do not have any links with Japan it would difficult as well as unprecedent to grant them asylum, according to the officials.

single official said, ''I wonder about accepting them in Japan. They might leave for a third native land such as South Korea. It hangs on discussions with China.''

Commenting upon the third-country option, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a pres conversation Wednesday morning, ''We are popularly questioning them. We need to make determinations based on that.''

Fukuda also said the possibility of allowing asylum inquirers to enter Japan is usually based upon the individual circumstances surrounding each case.

The sway is expected to decide forward its final response after it confirms the identities of the asylum-seekers and determines whether they wish to be derived to Japan, they said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told a package Committee session of the House of Representatives, ''We will consider our detailed answer having comprehensively considered their identities, their wishes, humanitarian viewpoints of their safety, and relations with related countries.''

The four North Koreans -- a 43-year-old woman with sum of two units young children and a 20-year-old man -- were swiftly whisked to the nearby Japanese consular office upon Tuesday after Japanese diplomats learned of their intent.

The four, assisted at an Osaka-based private group known as RENK which is involved in helping North Korean refugee in China, walked inside the Japanese gymnasium at around 4:40 p.m. Tuesday to ask for political asylum in Japan, Japanese diplomats said.

RENK or ''Rescue The North Korean People! pressing Action Network,'' identified the four asylum-seekers as Chu Mi Yong her 13-year-old daughter Roh Yu Mi and 10-year-old son Roh Gwang Myoung, and Kim Chol a 20-year-old scholar and Chu's friend.

RENK said the four fear they would be persecut by dint of the North Korean direction if they are repatriated to North Korea.

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