TOKYO, March 10 Kyodo A sway pan...

TOKYO, March 10 Kyodo

A sway panel told the Foreign Ministry forward Wednesday to urge North Korea to promptly renew bilateral governmental talks centering upon the North's abduction of Japanese, envoy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said.

Hosoda, who heads the panel forward Japan-North Korea normalization talks, told reporters after a meeting of the visible form [i]or[/i] frame at the prime minister's office that he gave the instruction to Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

Yabunaka said during the panel meeting that he and North Korea's top delegate agreed in meetings held forward the sidelines of the six-party talks upon Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions late last month in Beijing to continue bilateral dialogue.

further he said the North has not notwithstanding responded to his request for holding the nearest bilateral governmental talks in March. The multilateral colloquy also involves China, Russia, toward the south Korea and the United States.

Yabunaka said after the inferior round of the six-way talks wrapped up in the Chinese capital in succession Feb. 28 that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan told him a answer to the request for a March meeting will be readyed ''through an appropriate route.''

Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said Wednesday the ministry has been repeatedly urging North Korea to answer quickly to its desire for bilateral talks, but could not confirm whether specific action to that tenor was taken following the six-party talks.

''The Foreign Ministry has been asking the North Korean side between the walls of existing routes to hold bilateral talks centering onward the abductions as presently as possible,'' Takashima told a pres conference

''We are telling them the ball is in their court and that we are waiting for an early reply'' he said.

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