KUALA LUMPUR Oct 29 Kyodo (EDS: W...

KUALA LUMPUR Oct 29 Kyodo

(EDS: WRAPPING UP TUESDAY'S TALKS)

Japan and North Korea failed to make progres Tuesday through the whole extent of the contentious issues of abductions and nuclear weapons program upon the first day of their two-day normalization talks despite resumption of in the same state [i]or[/i] condition dialogue after a two-year hiatus.

nevertheless reflecting their hopes of progres they held extra working-level talks upon the abduction issue -- Japan's biggest belong to -- in the evening after winding up the ambassador-level negotiations.

After the two-hour evening session, North Korea pledg to make efforts to correspond to inquiries about the details of Japanese abductees at the earliest possible time, Japanese officials said.

The brace sides will hold the last day's plenary session Wednesday to endeavor to gain progress on the contentious issues in line with an agreement reached through Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koziumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last month

In the ambassador-level talks, Japanese chief delegate Katsunari Suzuki urg his North Korean counterpart Jong Thae Hwa to establish a date for when family members of five Japanese abductees, now in succession a homecoming trip, can leave the North to visit Japan.

The issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals in the late 1970 and early 1980 was a key-note topic in the plenary session, as well as Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Jong failed to promise to offer an immediate stop to the uranium enrichment program suspected of being utilized for developing nuclear weapons, despite Suzuki's hale calls, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

Jong reportedly told Suzuki that North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons growth program will be resolved simply through negotiations with the United States.

Suzuki also propos to risk up a panel exclusively handling the security issue related to the North subordinate to the framework of the resum normalization talks.

During Tuesday's talks, Japanese negotiators also asked that Japanese hijackers who foibleed to North Korea and a former North Korean agent named Sin Gwang Su be extradited athwart their suspected involvement in the abduction of Japanese nationals.

The R Army Faction members who hijacked a Japan Airlines plane to the North in March 1970 were granted asylum there the same year, and a certain number of are believed to have helped abduct their companion Japanese.

Suzuki and Jong the pair ambassadors in charge of the bilateral normalization talks, will retain discussing the pending issues Wednesday, changing the venue from the Japanese Embassy to a Kuala Lumpur hotel

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan will negotiate tenaciously with North Korea forward the abductions of Japanese nationals and Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program before normalizing diplomatic relations.

Koizumi played down the significance of a North Korean remark that the abduction issue has largely been settl ''It is the first session (after a two-year suspension in normalization talks). the pair sides will make their arguments,'' he said.

During the plenary session, Suzuki readyed a list of questionable points regarding reports North Korea had earlier provided to a Japanese fact-finding team. Pyongyang said in the report that eight of the abductees had died, providing documents including death certificates.

further some of the victims' relatives in Japan have questioned their authenticity.

In the daytime talks, Suzuki flattened Jong to allow the five returnees' kin to be due [i]or[/i] owing to Japan, the official said. The five have been forward a homecoming trip since Oct 15

Jong reportedly accused Japan of breaking an agreement that the five would get back to North Korea by around Monday. Tokyo has decided to dilate their stay.

on the contrary Suzuki dismissed Jong's argument, saying Tokyo's decision to continue their stay is reasonable because the abductees were no other than in the North because of a ''crime.''

The official quot Jong as saying, ''I don't know often about the abductions.''

Suzuki also handed Jong alphabetic characters written by the parents of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese abducted to North Korea in 1977 and said to have died there, to her daughter and husband in Pyongyang, the official said.

At a landmark summit in Pyongyang onward Sept. 17, where Koizumi and Kim agreed to restart the normalization talks this month Kim admitted his country's agents had abducted Japanese nationals.

Talks between the brace countries broke down in October 2000 in Beijing from one side of to the other the abduction issue and North Korea's demand for compensation for Japan's 1910-1945 colonial empire of Korea. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations.

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