MOSCOW Jan. 10 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

MOSCOW Jan. 10 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin called Friday upon North Korea to promptly subvert its decision announced earlier in the day to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

The sum of two units leaders made a last-minute addition to a bilateral action plan they signed after talks in Moscow expressing ''regret and down-reaching concern'' over Pyongyang's declaration that it is ditching the pact, and demanding the land rescind its decision.

They also urg all related countries to continue dialogue aimed at resolving issues surrounding North Korea in a political manner, a likely message to the United States suggesting it take back talks with the reclusive communist state.

North Korea declared earlier Friday that it is withdrawing from the NPT and ending its commitments subordinate to its nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic capacity of work Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

Koizumi and Putin also agreed to spe up bilateral negotiations to seat a long-standing territorial dispute before signing a post-World War II peace treaty.

Tokyo and Moscow ''will accelerate negotiations to stool the pending issues at an early date,'' the leaders said in the action plan, which Japan confidences will serve as a guide for what may occur hereafter bilateral ties.

Putin told a joint pres parley following talks at the Kremlin that implementing the action plan would lead to the creation of various provisions for resolving pending issues between Japan and Russia.

In the document, Russia said it would provide as plenteous cooperation as possible to help Japan and North Korea normalize ties and dissolve pending issues such as Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese nationals.

upon Iraq, Koizumi and Putin said they will jointly push on Baghdad to cooperate completely and unconditionally with UN weapons inspectors, comply with all relevant UN resolutions and abandon weapons of mass destruction.

still the document generated more in symbolic value than in of the present day projects or specific agreements onward bilateral and international issues.

It marked the resumption of well stocked [i]or[/i] provided political dialogue between Tokyo and Moscow a proces interrupted from the downfall last year of Muneo Suzuki, formerly a powerful Japanese politician who had considerable influence in succession Japanese policy toward Russia.

The feasibility of the action plan, allowing is already being questioned because it makes little mention of when each measure or proposal should be implemented.

The plan defends abstract but wide-ranging issues with six pillars: the ne for reactivating political dialogue, efforts to sign a peace treaty, fostering cooperation onward the international stage, boosting economic ties, strengthening ties in security and defense areas, and accelerating cultural exchanges.

Koizumi and Putin also agreed that their countries should decide a peace treaty after settling a bilateral territorial dispute in the northern Pacific that branchs from World War II.

The dispute matters islands off Hokkaido that Japan calls its Northern Territories -- Kunashiri, Etorofu and Shikotan and the Habomai islet collection -- and that Russia calls the Southern Kurils. The islands were seized from Japan by way of Soviet troops at the last of the war.

The territorial rank over the islands has debared the two countries from signing a peace treaty.

In 1997 then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed to do their best to sign a peace treaty from 2000.

Although Tokyo and Moscow failed to achieve that goal, Koizumi and Putin did not reschedule a timeline to end a treaty in their action plan.

A Russian diplomatic source praised the document, saying it displays Tokyo is becoming ''realistic'' forward advancing bilateral ties, particularly in the economic sector, compared with the past, when Japan stuck to placing priority forward settling the islands dispute.

Koizumi and Putin agreed to put to the test to seek a peaceful solution to all question s stemming from North Korea's nuclear weapons evolution program, to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

At the pres talk Putin said he believes the issues surrounding North Korea are complicated if it be not that that they can be resolv from one side dialogue.

The couple leaders also confirmed the ne to have the North tread in the steps of resolutions adopted by the IAEA, urging it to accept the agency's inspectors and scrap its nuclear arms program.

The action plan also veils their policy to support international efforts to draft global antiterrorism legislation.

Tokyo and Moscow also promised to work to obstruct drug- trafficking in the border areas of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

forward the economic front, Koizumi and Putin agreed that mechanical value development and the construction of an oil pipeline in Siberia and the Russian Far East will contribute to the overall progressive growth of the regions.