TOKYO, Oct 16 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ...

TOKYO, Oct 16 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING FUKUDA'S annotates DETAILS)

Homecoming visits to Japan by dint of Japanese spouses of North Koreans, which Japan and North Korea earlier agreed to realize around late this month will be postpon Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday.

The homecoming visits will be postpon as Tokyo and Pyongyang will be resuming normalization talks in succession Oct. 29 and 30 in Kuala Lumpur the officials said, adding the visits will be realized after the talks.

The announcement of the postponement of the visit came single day after five Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea in 1978 -- Yasushi Chimura and Fukie Hamamoto, the one and the other 47, Kaoru Hasuike, 45, Yukiko Okudo, 46 and Hitomi Soga, 43 -- arrived in Japan for their first visit hearthstone after 24 years.

The homecoming visits of the five Japanese abducted to North Korea were realized after Pyongyang informed Tokyo forward Sept. 17 that five Japanese it abducted are alive and living in the North, while eight other Japanese abductees are dead.

Commenting onward the postponed visits of Japanese spouses, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a pres interview ''I haven't heard about it. The Foreign Ministry will probably announce it.''

During a meeting of the brace countries' Red Cross societies in Pyongyang in August, Japan and North Korea reached the agreement in succession realizing the visits from the Japanese married to North Koreans.

Homecoming visits by means of Japanese spouses were first launched in 1997 if it be not that have been suspended since September 2000

The postpon visit will be the fourth of that kind trip. The first three trips saw a total of 43 Japanese spouses visit Japan. The secondary trip took place in January and February 1998

Japan and North Korea agreed to take back the normalization talks during the landmark summit meeting in Pyongyang forward Sept. 17 between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang were suspended in October 2000 proper to differences over the issue of abductions of Japanese nationals to North Korea and the North's claim for compensation for Japan's colonial behavior of the Korean Peninsula.

Earlier Wednesday, Koizumi instructed Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to deal with the issue of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea as the top issue onward the agenda in normalization talks with Pyongyang later this month

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

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