TOKYO, Feb 18 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATIN...

TOKYO, Feb 18 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Japan is looking for links between it and the four asylum inquirers from North Korea, who set ined a Japanese school in Beijing onward Tuesday, as a way to determine to what degree to deal with the case, regulation officials said.

The Foreign Ministry is coordinating with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's office to find disclosed more about the identities of the four and with what intent they have expressed a desire to proceed to Japan as well as the possibility of Japan accepting them as refugees

Japanese Embassy personnel are questioning the four in Beijing, the officials said.

Koizumi told reporters at his office Tuesday evening, ''We are trying to grasp the situation. We will think about for what cause to deal with it one time we have accurately grasped the situation.''

Whether the Japanese direction would accept them as refugee will ''depend onward the situation,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said.

It is unknown whether they are Japanese nationals or former Korean residents of Japan or North Koreans, the top restraint spokesman said.

If they are former Korean residents or their Japanese spouses or children, Japan is likely to chase its practice of accepting them. on the contrary if they do not have any links with Japan, the rule will have to decide onward the ''case which is different from others,'' according to a Foreign Ministry source.

A Japan-based cluster supporting people fleeing North Korea said four refugee from the North go intoed the Japanese school in Beijing to demand political asylum.

Chu Mi Yong 43 her daughter Roh Yu Mi, 13 and son Roh Gwang Myoung, 10 joined Kim Chol 20 a scholar in entering the school at 4:40 pm Tuesday local time, according to the Web site of the RENK clump which assists North Korean asylum seekers

Japan has contacted Chinese authorities about the case, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

Embassy officials arrived at the educate after receiving notification from academy officials and took the four with them to the embassy's consular affairs division, where they are being questioned, according to the ministry official.

If Japan were to decide to take in the four calm if they do not have any links with the region it will have to negotiate with China above making them leave China with special travel documents and go by the agency of procedures at home to accept them as political refugees

''It is not an easy thing to do,'' a Japanese dominion source said.

There are also transactions that if Japan accepts the same set of people without links to the home more similar asylum seekers will put to the test to come to Japan, the source said.

Meanwhile, the officials said the indoctrinate dealt with the incident according to a manual prepared lately by the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, showing the asylum inquirers a sign that says in Korean, ''This is not the Japanese Embassy...Japanese instructs do not have extraterritorial rights.''

In line with the manual, the teach urged the four to wait outside the school's facility for about 10 minutes until the Japanese Embassy staff arrived to pick them up said officials at the Education, improvement Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

The instruct principal reported to the education ministry that the incident was taken care of without any confusion or danger to faculty and observers who were either on campus or inside a train bus during the episode, the officials said.

The embassy prepared the manual and the signs for Japanese place of educations after a group of North Korean asylum inquirers entered a German drill in Beijing last September.

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