TOKYO, Oct 16 Kyodo Prime Ministe...

TOKYO, Oct 16 Kyodo

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi instructed Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi forward Wednesday to deal with the issue of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea as the top issue upon the agenda in normalization talks with Pyongyang to take back later this month, Kawaguchi said.

''I was instructed to give top priority to the abduction issue and was told to thoroughly address security,'' Kawaguchi said at a pres conversation after a cabinet meeting in the morning.

Japan and North Korea agreed to begin again the normalization talks during the landmark summit meeting in Pyongyang forward Sept. 17 between Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, which were suspended in October 2000 to be paid to differences over the abduction issue and North Korea's demand for compensation for Japan's colonial mastery of the Korean Peninsula, are scheduled to take up again Oct. 29 and 30 in Kuala Lumpur

Pyongyang informed Tokyo forward Sept. 17 that five Japanese abducted to North Korea are alive and living in the North, while eight other Japanese nationals it abducted are dead.

The five Japanese nationals abducted in 1978 -- Yasushi Chimura and Fukie Hamamoto, the two 47, Kaoru Hasuike, 45, Yukiko Okudo, 46 and Hitomi Soga, 43 -- arrived in Japan forward Tuesday for their first visit dwelling in 24 years.

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