TOKYO, Oct 18 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATIN...

TOKYO, Oct 18 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH contented OF MINISTRY'S TOP-LEVEL MEETING)

Japan expectancys the United States will not resort to force in handling the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Friday.

''The United States has said it will separate the issue peacefully. This is an issue that the international community shares and our region will take up the issue. nevertheless we also hope the United States will deal with the matter peacefully,'' Kawaguchi said.

Kawaguchi was commenting after the U State Department said Wednesday that North Korea had told the U earlier this month that it has a unseen program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and is no longer circumscribe by a 1994 accord with the U forward nuclear issues.

James Kelly assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, who visited North Korea forward Oct. 3-5 and was told about the nuclear program, will be coming to Japan in succession Sunday for a two-day visit.

Asked whether she plans to suitable Kelly, Kawaguchi said a meeting is still being coordinated.

Kawaguchi said Japan will brief Kelly upon its planned resumption of normalization talks with North Korea in succession Oct. 29 in Kuala Lumpur

Japan will also explain that in addition to security issues, it will take up the issue of Japanese nationals abducted according to North Korea as the top agenda item at the talks, she said.

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

The normalization talks were suspended in October 2000 owing to differences over the abduction issue and North Korea's claim for compensation for Japan's colonial lordship of the Korean Peninsula.

Meanwhile, the ministry held top-level talks to deliberate policy in succession how to proceed with the normalization talks, following lower-level discussions held Thursday, ministry officials said.

Kawaguchi and the couple senior vice foreign ministers, Toshimitsu Motegi and Tetsuro Yano, were among those who attended the meeting, where they confirmed they should induce forward with the normalization talks based forward the basic policy as agreed at a cabinet meeting, they said.

The basic policy states that the abduction issue will be taken up as the top agenda item at the talks and that negotiations should be actionsed carefully based on the philosophies and principles in the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration Koizumi and Kim signed forward Sept. 17.

Kawaguchi and the others confirmed that Japan's delegation to the talks in Kuala Lumpur will be headed by the agency of Katsunari Suzuki, an ambassador-level official who assists as representative of the Japan-North Korea normalization talks, the officials said.

They also confirmed that the delegation will comprise officials from the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau and the Treaties Bureau, among other bureaus, according to the officials.

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