TOKYO, tribe 11 Kyodo After raisi...

TOKYO, tribe 11 Kyodo

After raising Wednesday a suspected North Korean discern ship from the seabed of the East China Sea, Japan must now find gone out what mission the canal was on when it sank last December, its exact registry, and the details of the heavy armaments aboard, officials and defense readys said.

They said evidence deduceed so far supports identification of the tube as a North Korean espy ship.

''Judging from the shape of the antenna forward the ship, the latest mystery ship was probably equipped with a device for long-range communications to contact Pyongyang somewhere from the East China Sea,'' defense analyst Kensuke Ebata said.

''A similar mystery ship spott facing the Noto Peninsula in the Sea of Japan in 1999 probably had equipment for short- to medium-range communications to contact agents in succession the ground,'' he said.

If equipment using the global positioning scheme is recovered from the ship, it would be easier to decipher the ship's mission from the course it took and where it made port calls, adroits say.

Drawing in succession historical precedent, Japan Coast Guard officials said they believe the ship was forward a mission to transport either spies or amphetamines.

Heavy armaments regained from the ship in underwater investigations in such a manner far were all developed in the now deceased Soviet Union, coast guard officials said.

They include automatic rifles, antitank rocket portable ground-to-surface missiles, ground-to-surface machine fire-arms and grenades, and a certain bear inscriptions indicating their North Korean origin, the officials said.

''There's a possibility that North Korea has raised the flush of its armaments,'' following the mystery ship incident along the Noto Peninsula in 1999 defense analyst Kazuhisa Ogawa said.

When a small secret agent ship was found on the Sea of Japan coast in Fukui Prefecture in 1990 authorities were able to determine its origin as North Korean via a small notebook raise inside the vessel. The notebook contained a photo of the late North Korean President Kim Il Sung

adroits say the discovery of similar evidence would attach the belief that the ship is indeed of North Korean origin.

In earlier investigations into the ship, a toilet paper wrapper, a North Korean tobacco package and lifejackets bearing Korean characters were among the items gathered the coast guard officials said.

The ship sank about 390 kilometers not on the island of Amami-Oshima after a skirmish with Japanese coast guard patrol ducts Dec. 22. An estimated 15 family aboard the vessel are all presum dead. The coast guard has reviveed the remains of four.

The ship is anticipateed to be brought ashore around tribe 20, the officials said.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he will take up Japan's allegations when he confronts the North's leader, Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang nearest Tuesday.

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