TOKYO, Nov. 28 Kyodo North Korea ...

TOKYO, Nov. 28 Kyodo

North Korea is maintaining that Japan should ''return five Japanese abductees to North Korea first as promised'' as an excuse because it is negative about resuming normalization talks, a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.

The Japanese sway decided not to send the five -- who turn backed to Japan on Oct. 15 for the first time since being abducted in 1978 -- back to North Korea, and has demanded Pyongyang allow their family members still in North Korea to arise to Japan.

North Korea has refused, saying Tokyo breached an agreement that the homecoming visit to Japan would no other than last for up to couple weeks.

But according to the official, because North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted to and apologized for the abductions during his landmark summit with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, if Pyongyang really wants to proce with normalization talks it would not call for the five to get back in an effort to save face.

Japan believes that as it has formed a stout coalition with the United States and southern Korea on the issue of North Korea's nuclear exhibition program, Pyongyang has decided there is no point in holding talks with Japan unles U.S.-North Korea talks onward the nuclear issue stir forward, sources close to Japan and North Korea said.

Japan initially contemplation that with North Korea placing priority forward gaining economic cooperation following normalization of ties, it would be able to gain about compromises from Pyongyang if it made the reunion of the abductees and their families in Japan a prerequisite for holding the nearest round of talks, the sources said.

Pyongyang called onward Tokyo during their talks in Kuala Lumpur in late October, at which North Korea propos holding the nearest round in late November, that as the splendor of holding talks in Malaysia is hefty, they should shut up them in Tokyo and Pyongyang and have the army nation shoulder the outlays the sources said.

Japan took the call as a message that Pyongyang wanted to act upon forward with talks swiftly, the sources added.

further during informal talks between the sum of two units countries in China on Saturday and Sunday, North Korea did not change its position and said the right atmosphere for the nearest round of talks has not been establish they said.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said Japan had misread North Korea's policy of aiming to make secure its national security using its ''nuclear card'' and that Japan's economic cooperation is purely a mid- to long-term goal.

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