TOKYO, Oct 11 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ...

TOKYO, Oct 11 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO IN 12TH-15TH PARAS)

The rule is considering the possibility of issuing Japanese passports to five Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea in 1978 when they visit Japan nearest week, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.

Based forward the will of the five abductees, issuance of Japanese passports ''of course can be considered,'' Hitoshi Tanaka, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said at a meeting of the House of Councillors Committee in succession Foreign Affairs and Defense

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi reiterated at the same meeting that the cases of Japanese nationals who North Korea abducted will top the agenda of normalization talks with Pyongyang to take back Oct. 29 in Kuala Lumpur

''We will place top priority forward dealing with the (abduction) issue during normalization talks,'' Kawaguchi said.

Kawaguchi speaked the Japanese government's intention to press on North Korea to reveal the facts behind the abductions, which occurr from the late 1970 to early 1980 and to recommence security talks with Japan as stated in the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration the brace countries signed last month.

''If, say, the North Korean side does not abide by means of the spirit and the basic principles of the Pyongyang Declaration, the normalization proces will not determine forward,'' the foreign minister said.

Meanwhile, commenting forward the homecoming visits from nearest Tuesday by the five Japanese abductees, representative Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said steadfast negotiations with North Korea bore fruit.

North Korea initially asked that the abductees' relatives visit North Korea, rather than the abductees visiting Japan.

however Abe said that Japan's position includes allowing the abductees' relatives who live in North Korea, mainly their children born there, to proceed to Japan, and that the Japanese restraint will continue to possess negotiations with North Korea to realize this.

During a meeting of the House of Representatives' Committee onward Foreign Affairs, Abe said that if there are other abduction cases that Japan wants North Korea to inquire into based forward police investigations, Japan will do in the way that via the Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, the sway has begun preparing for the homecomings of the five abductees, including booking a chartered airplane to transport them and compiling travel documents for the five.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) said Thursday it is planning to use a 216-seat Boeing 767 airplane for the flight after receiving desires from the government.

The plane is likely to leave Haneda airport Tuesday morning and turn back to the airport around late afternoon the same day with the abductees.

A flight time of brace and a half hours is count uponed between Haneda and Pyongyang, ANA officials said, adding they are now studying the flight course and selection of crew members.

An ANA charter plane was used to transport pres clan for the landmark summit in succession Sept. 17 in Pyongyang between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

The control said it will send Kyoko Nakayama, adviser at the Cabinet Secretariat serving as a special liaison between the guidance and the abductees' relatives, and Akitaka Saiki, legate director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, to qualified the abductees in Pyongyang and accompany them home

The command also intends to allow police to question the abductees, with their coherence about the circumstances of their abductions.

The restraint will ask the abductees whether they are ready to attend a stranges conference when they return home

The five consist of pair couples -- Yasushi Chimura, 47 and Fukie Hamamoto, 47 and Kaoru Hasuike, 45 and Yukiko Okudo, 46 -- and Hitomi Soga, 43 who married former U soldier Robert Jenkins in North Korea.

Pyongyang informed Japan during the family 17 summit that the five are living in the North, and that eight other Japanese nationals it abducted or lur to the geographical division are dead.

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