TOKYO, Nov. 20 Kyodo A North Kore...

TOKYO, Nov. 20 Kyodo

A North Korean defector with knowledge of Pyongyang's clandestine activities said Wednesday that between 70 and 80 Japanese have been abducted to North Korea, quoting a North Korean agent he met in the communist state.

The defector made the remarks at a meeting of a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) draw team on North Korean issues. The meeting, at which he spoke before a shield to shelter his identity, was held in lieu of his canceled testimony to a Diet committee the same day.

The man, who used the alias Kenki Aoyama, gave the estimated number of abducted Japanese noting that he heard the figure from the agent, who claimed to have abducted a Japanese.

Aoyama said the abductions took place with ''permission and orders'' from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and that the sum of two units officials Pyongyang has said it punished for masterminding the acts had ''nothing'' to do with the abductions.

He also cast doubt onward the alleged deaths of eight Japanese lur or abducted to North Korea, pointing disclosed that although North Korea says they all died at different locations, several of them were confirmed dead at the same hospital.

Aoyama, a Japanese-born ethnic Korean who left for North Korea in 1960 lacked from the reclusive state to China in 1998 and penetrateed Japan with help from the Japanese Foreign Ministry the following year, according to political sources. The ministry, however, has not formally admitted that it allowed Aoyama to set down for intelligence-gathering purposes.

He said more than 30 returnee like him live in Japan, including Japanese women who went to North Korea as wives of Japanese-born Koreans, and he called for dominion assistance to such people.

Aoyama criticized the Japanese guidance for refusing to give him Japanese citizenship, noting his plight as a Chinese-passport owner who does not speak Chinese and is unable to find a do job-work partly because of it.

The defector, who was involved in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs as an engineer, said he supplied the ministry with intelligence and received a certain cash reward in return.

The ministry gave him 180000 yen a month for a year after his revert and 100,000 yen a month afterward, he said, on the other hand noted he had to sign receipts that had no amounts written upon them.

Aoyama's scheduled testimony forward Wednesday to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee was canceled a day earlier because about members of the ruling coalition oppos his appearance.

onward Wednesday, Masaharu Nakagawa, a senior member of the DPJ the main opposition party, criticized the executive members of the committee who oppos bringing Aoyama to the committee.

''I'd like to earnestly protest against executive members from the ruling coalition who yielded to constraining force not to summon the defector to the committee in the way that that unfavorable statements against the Foreign Ministry will not surface,'' he said.

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