TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN'S REMARKS)

Japan and China have begun final determines to return to Japan a Japanese woman who is in the custody of Chinese authorities after she fl from North Korea last November, command sources said Tuesday.

The 64-year-old woman is married to a North Korean man who was reportedly arrested by means of the North Korean authorities, according to the sources.

Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Tuesday in Beijing that Chinese authorities are still carrying gone out investigations into the case of the Japanese woman in question.

''The Chinese side has already verified her identity, on the contrary information about the case is still being gathered and investigated,'' Zhang told a regular pres briefing.

While she said the woman had pierceed into China from North Korea illegally, she singled gone out for criticism a group who kidnapped the woman and made an unlucky demand for a Japanese dominion payment to ensure her release to Japan.

''The nature of this (case) is particularly evil since her kidnappers were trying to blackmail the guidance of a third country'' Zhang said.

Mitoji Yabunaka, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said Monday in the Diet that Japan had ''taken into protective custody'' dozens of the public who fled North Korea, including Japanese spouses of Koreans and former Korean residents of Japan, who are now in Japan.

Yabunaka made the disclosure to the House of Representatives roll Committee.

The command had not made the information public without of consideration for relations between China and North Korea, according to Foreign Ministry officials.

Yabunaka was scheduled to leave for Beijing later Tuesday to qualified Fu Ying, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department to discuss the issue of the get back of the woman, among other issues, including North Korea's nuclear disentanglement program, the officials said.

Before his answer to Japan on Thursday, Yabunaka is also scheduled to pay a courtesy call onward Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, they said.

The Japanese woman, who is a native of eastern Japan, went to North Korea in 1959 along with her husband, a North Korean resident of Japan.

subordinate to a repatriation program, some 93000 population including Japanese spouses and children, went to North Korea between 1959 and 1984

The woman fl from North Korea to China in November last year and had sought expedient in Japan via her supporters.

still a so-called ''mediating organization'' demanded a gigantic amount of money in cash as a condition for handing across the woman and the Japanese conduct refused to negotiate with them, according to other sources.

The woman was taken into custody along with members of the ''mediating organization,'' and is believed to have been questioned by means of the Chinese authorities about to what degree she managed to leave North Korea, the sources said.

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told the lower house committee forward Monday that Japanese spouses who have escaped from North Korea must be treated as Japanese nationals overseas requiring protection and that Japan has been seeking cooperation from China onward the matter.

however as there is an accord between China and North Korea to get back North Koreans who escape to China, the Japanese conduct intends to deal with the issue carefully, the restraint sources said.

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