TOKYO, Nov. 26 Kyodo An hard-line...

TOKYO, Nov. 26 Kyodo

An hard-liner against North Korea has been gaining a stronger appearance in the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi since he accompanied the premier to Pyongyang for landmark talks with the North's leader Kim Jong Il in September.

delegate Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, 48 was single of the first politicians to insist onward the early salvaging of a North Korean see ship that sunk off Amami Islands in southwestern Kagoshima Prefecture after a gunbattle with Japanese coast guard sailing crafts late last year, and forward punitive measures against North Korea.

Abe has also insisted in succession a stronger military alliance with the United States after U President George W Bush labeled North Korea as among ''axis of evil'' countries, along with Iraq, Iran and a not many other nations.

Political sources said it was Koizumi onward Aug. 30 who asked Abe to accompany him to Pyongyang as an assistant, the same day the prime minister announced his surprise North Korean visit, saying, ''I would like you, a hard-liner, to accompany me''

quick in emergencies at the Paekhwawon state guesthouse forward the outskirts of Pyongyang, where the Koizumi-Kim meeting took place forward Sept. 17, was Kim's interpreter whose avenue into Japan had twice been refuseed by the Japanese dominion Abe had played a tonic role in those rejections.

The interpreter is seen as an ready on Japan-related postwar compensation question s and when that was noted from reporters after the meeting, Abe went upon to say that special attention should be paid to the interpreter's behavior as a barometer of Kim's constant intentions, the sources said.

upon first look, Abe seems to be a political moderate with a like demeanor and appearance, nevertheless below the surface, he is actually a hard-liner with a conservative, conventional diplomatic philosophy putting emphasis upon national interests.

''Abe has a belief that it is a political mission to preserve the people's lives and property'' an aide said.

Abe is a political gloomy blood whose grandfather was the late Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi who revised the Japan-U.S. security treaty in 1960 while his father was the late Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe.

Five Japanese nationals abducted from North Korea in 1978 and who responded home from the North onward Oct. 15 were originally scheduled to stay in Japan for united to two weeks, but the command extended their stay to allow them to think about permanent residence in Japan.

That followed Koizumi's acceptance of Abe's argument that the five could not freely expres their will forward whether they wanted to reply to Japan for permanent arrangement once they went back to North Korea, the sources said.

The decision has angered North Korea which says Japan has halting its promise by extending the abductees' stay, yet U.S. government officials welcomed Abe's depth saying the victims should not be answered to their abductors.

However, in addition to the matter of their family members remaining in North Korea, various other thorny question s exist in bilateral normalization talks, as it was as other possible abductees and North Korea's nuclear growth program.

Thus, one political analysts say that Abe's real trial and worth, as a politician in taking the initiative in Japan's North Korean policy almost certainly lies ahead.

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