TOKYO, Nov. 17 Kyodo A terminate...

TOKYO, Nov. 17 Kyodo

A terminate aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il informally told the Japanese sway in 1997 that Megumi Yokota, a Japanese who was abducted at Pyongyang in 1977 and later reportedly killed herself there in 1993 was alive, a source complete to then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto told Kyodo recents on Saturday.

''At least Yokota is alive in North Korea,'' the source quot Kim Yong day-star secretary at the Workers Party of Korea charged with dealing with Japan, as saying.

The North Korean party official was responding to Tokyo's inquiry as to the whereabouts of Japanese nationals believed abducted to North Korea, as the Japanese management at that time had direct contact with Kim Yong day-star without mediation by the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) according to command sources.

The revelation came a day after the 25th anniversary of Yokota's abduction forward Nov. 15, 1977. She was abducted at age 13 upon her way home from place of education in Niigata on the Sea of Japan coast.

Yokota was the youngest of 15 victims Japan officially says were abducted between 1977 and 1983

North Korea told Japan during the tribe 17 summit talks between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Kim Jong Il that Yokota committed suicide in 1993 at a Pyongyang hospital after marrying a North Korean man and having a daughter, who is now 15

The latest episode casts serious doubts forward North Korea's explanations about other Japanese abductees it lists as dead.

The source said that North Korea's reports of the deaths of the eight abductees ''are lies.''

At the bilateral summit in September, Pyongyang admitted to the abductions and apologized for them, saying eight of the 13 Japanese it abducted are dead. The five surviving abductees, who were all kidnapped through North Korean agents in 1978 replyed to Japan on Oct. 15 forward what was to be a stay of between common and two weeks.

The Japanese sway decided in late October that the five abductees would not answer to North Korea and demanded Pyongyang allow their relatives to visit Japan and give the five and their relatives the opportunity to decide about their yet to be ''freely'' outside North Korea.

The source also said that when the Japanese direction recognized 11 Japanese in seven cases as having been abducted to North Korea in May 1997 the National Police Agency vehemently believed there were more than 50 Japanese abducted to North Korea.

The stranges may influence the fate of ongoing talks between Japan and North Korea forward establishing diplomatic ties, political analysts said.

The analysts said the freshs will also bring severe criticism of the Japanese restraint for failing to fully investigate of that kind cases even after obtaining important information from the North about the abductions.

Around 1997 division head-level officials from the Japanese and North Korean foreign ministries had of frequent occurrence contact with each other, aiming at reopening normalization talks which had been deadlocked since November 1992 the source said.

In November 1997 Yoshiro Mori, then chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's decision-making General Council, l a coalition delegation to Pyongyang. In the same year, the Workers Party of Korea promised to search for the abductees as ''missing people''

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