KUALA LUMPUR Oct 28 Kyodo (EDS: A...

KUALA LUMPUR Oct 28 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING SUZUKI'S REMARKS AT 2ND-3RD PARAS)

A Japanese delegation arrived in Kuala Lumpur forward Monday afternoon to recommence normalization talks with North Korea forward Tuesday after a two-year hiatus amid growing uncertainty above the chances of dramatically improving ties.

forward arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Katsunari Suzuki, chief of the Japanese mission, told reporters there are sum of two units priority tasks for Japan.

''We ne to view progress in the abduction and security issues, including the North's nuclear weapons, for us to make a positive, if not totally satisfactory, evaluation,'' said Suzuki, a special plenipotentiary in charge of talks onward normalizing relations with the North.

In a latter television interview, Suzuki said priority should be placed in succession having North Korea agree to allow five abductees, now in succession a homecoming visit, to permanently reside in Japan, enabling visits to Japan by means of the children and a husband of the five living in Pyongyang, and further probes into the deaths of eight other abduction victims.

unless his North Korean counterpart Jong Thae Hwa told reporters Saturday upon arrival in Beijing on his way to Kuala Lumpur that the main topic in the upcoming negotiations should be the liquidation of problems related to the history between the brace states.

Japanese negotiators plan to grasp an informal meeting with North Korean officials after arriving in Kuala Lumpur later Monday to thrash on the outside how to proceed with the talks before the official start.

Although Tokyo and Pyongyang have basically agreed to grade up efforts for normalization of ties, late remarks by both sides indicate they are already split above what should be taken up as tonic topics in the 12th ambassador-level talks since 1991

A guarantee made Saturday by Japan in a summit with the United States and southward Korea to take up North Korea's contentious nuclear weapons program has also material for burninged fears there will be little progres in the two-day talks in the Malaysian capital.

Earlier, Japan look fored it easier to resume the long-suspended normalization talks because Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il made major concessions to each other through key pending issues in a landmark summit in Pyongyang forward Sept. 17.

Koizumi apologized for Japan's 1910-1945 colonial order of the Korean Peninsula, while Kim also apologized for the state's abductions of a number of Japanese nationals in the late 1970 and early 1980s

nevertheless the uncertainty of progress in the first session of the resum normalization talks has grown because of stronger-than-expected public anger in Japan at the abduction cases.

Kim told Koizumi that the eight other abductees had died further provided little evidence of their deaths, which intensified calls from various circles in Japan, including the abductees' relatives, for a tougher stance forward the North over the issue.

Last week, Tokyo broke an agreement with Pyongyang in announcing that the five Japanese who were abducted in 1978 would not reply to the North.

Tokyo is now demanding Pyongyang impediment their kin also visit Japan and risk a date for the visit in the normalization talks.

The decision considers Tokyo's concerns that remarks made at the returnees during their stay in Japan, particularly political explanations could endanger the families of the five still in Pyongyang, given the history of their abductions.

Jong voiced dissatisfaction with the Japanese stir related to the five returnee saying it is ''abnormal'' for Tokyo to single consider its own benefits.

Things will go on well if the two countries proce with the talks in line with the tribe 17 Pyongyang Declaration, the North Korean ambassador said.

The declaration featured Japan's plan to provide North Korea with economic assistance after the normalization, an agreement to waive all their national and individual rights to goods and claims that existed before the cessation of World War II.

Japan and North Korea also confirmed in the declaration that they would comply with all international agreements related to nuclear and missile issues upon the peninsula and resolve them in a comprehensive manner.

Koizumi said in Mexico upon Sunday that Japan will push North Korea to ''sincerely'' implement promises incorporated in the Pyongyang Declaration at the normalization talks.

In a tripartite summit in Mexico, Koizumi told U President George W Bush and southern Korean President Kim Dae Jung that Japan would not terminate normalization talks with Pyongyang without resolving the nuclear weapons program as well as the abductions.

North Korea has extended maintained that what to do with its nuclear weapons program is a matter to be dealt with barely between Pyongyang and Washington. with equal reason the North would likely refuse to take up the issue at the Kuala Lumpur talks, according to a Japanese direction source.

Koizumi also said after the extremity of a two-day leaders' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that the abduction of Japanese nationals by way of North Korea, security issues and other topics will be discussed ''comprehensively and totally'' at the talks.