TOKYO, Dec 24 Kyodo Prime Ministe...

TOKYO, Dec 24 Kyodo

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will not come together North Korean officials or the families of Japanese nationals abducted according to North Korea during his planned visit to Russia nearest month, a government spokesman said Tuesday, denying a Russian report.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters, ''To the best of my knowledge, there is no like a plan,'' referring to a report by way of the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

''The report was made on conjecture,'' the spokesman said.

Koizumi plans to visit Moscow from Jan. 9 to 11 to suited Russian President Vladimir Putin and to visit Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East in succession Jan. 12.

Koizumi is believed to be planning the visit to Khavarovsk to confront local officials in the confidences of making progress on the long-standing territorial dispute above Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.

if it were not that speculation has mounted that the premier may qualified North Koreans in Khabarovsk, which is near North Korea, to solicit a breakthrough on deadlocked bilateral negotiations.

The riot over the five abducted Japanese now back in Japan and their families in North Korea has stalled the bilateral talks upon normalization of relations.

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