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 rouses to return to Japan a Japanese woman who is in the custody of Chinese authorities after she fl from North Korea last November, rule sources said Tuesday.

The 64-year-old woman is married to a North Korean man who was reportedly arrested on 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 disclosed investigations into the case of the Japanese woman in question.

''The Chinese side has already verified her identity, if it be not that information about the case is still being gathered and investigated,'' Zhang told a regular pres briefing.

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

''The nature of this (case) is particularly evil since her kidnappers were trying to blackmail the sway 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 race 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 pack Committee.

The rule had not made the information public gone out 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 revert of the woman, among other issues, including North Korea's nuclear progressive growth program, the officials said.

Before his respond to Japan on Thursday, Yabunaka is also scheduled to pay a courtesy call forward 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.

beneath a repatriation program, some 93000 nation 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 asylum in Japan via her supporters.

however a so-called ''mediating organization'' demanded a immense 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 at the Chinese authorities about for what reason 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 upon the matter.

on the other hand as there is an accord between China and North Korea to reply North Koreans who escape to China, the Japanese management intends to deal with the issue carefully, the command sources said.

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