TOKYO, Jan. 6 Kyodo China and Nor...

TOKYO, Jan. 6 Kyodo

China and North Korea privately signed a pact in 1986 allowing Beijing to forcibly repatriate North Korean defectors and the deal may still be in force a North Korean defectors' supporter in Japan told Kyodo freshs on Sunday.

''In the fact that a criminal is investigated and arrested, the delinquent shall necessarily be handed above to the other side'' and if the same side is unable to make an arrest ''arrest may be entrusted to the other side,'' says a nine-page English translation of the pact that the supporter, to leeward Young Hwa, made available.

to leeward is calling more Japanese the community to urge China and North Korea to scrap the agreement amid growing criticism that of the like kind forced repatriations violate human rights.

The Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order in the Border Areas was signed from an official of North Korea's not new Ministry of State Security and an official of China's of long date Ministry of Public Security forward Aug. 12, 1986, in Dandong, near the Chinese-North Korean border.

''Both sides shall mutually cooperate forward the issue of handling criminals,'' the accord says.

In the result that there occurs the danger of ''antirevolutionary elements'' of the like kind as spies and terrorists, escaping into the other region ''the other side must necessarily be informed,'' it says.

''There shall be no limits to the time or place of the reciprocal liaison between the two sides,'' it says. ''The notified side shall necessarily adopt the required operation to aid the other side in intercepting and arresting the criminals.''

The existence of the pact was expos as Chinese authorities are taking a tougher stance in succession people who have secretly left North Korea for China since May last year.

That month a North Korean family rushed into the Japanese consulate general in Shengyang, northeastern China, seeking asylum -- a high-profile incident drawing global attention. The family then pierceed South Korea through the Philippines.

leeward who heads a group called extrication the North Korean People cogent Action Network (RENK), said the pact has legitimized the Chinese authorities' forcible repatriation of illegal immigrants from North Korea.

unless both the Chinese and North Korean ministries were reorganized after the signing of the pact, and in this way it has possibly been reviewed, said lee-side an associate professor at Kansai University's Faculty of Economics.

China and North Korea agreed the pact would be effective for 20 years from the date of its signing.

The accord says the passage points of the sum of two units countries' border areas ''must be settl between the walls of consultation with the other side.''

The pact requires border passers posses a ''passport, border-resident border pass, border-business pass or other certificates that have been authenticated between the walls of the consultation of one as well as the other sides.''

It is blameworthy for Japanese people to think ''the pact has nothing to do with Japan,'' side sheltered from the wind said. Japan ''should demand that China scrap the pact,'' he said.

Defectors from North Korea include Japanese nationals who went to the North as spouses of North Koreans in the postwar era and chose to leave the nation Lee said.

any of those Japanese spouses, mainly women who married North Korean men made homecoming visits to Japan in subordination to projects officially organized at Japan and North Korea.

unless some of the Japanese spouses are believed to have privately left the North, apparently fit to poverty or food shortages -- the defectors side sheltered from the wind referred to.

In June last year, the U House of Representatives adopted a resolution with a 406-0 ballot demanding the Chinese government halt the forcible deportation of North Korean defectors.

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