TOKYO, Aug. 15 Kyodo A Japanese R...

TOKYO, Aug. 15 Kyodo

A Japanese R Cros Society delegation left Japan forward Thursday evening for talks with its North Korean counterpart in Pyongyang onward Sunday and Monday, a meeting marking the start of a series of contacts between the brace countries this month.

The Japanese delegation, headed by the agency of the society's international relations department head Hiroshi Higashiura, will arrive in Pyongyang forward Saturday via Beijing. Officials of the Japanese Foreign Ministry will join the delegation in the Chinese capital, they said.

Tokyo will report Pyongyang, through the Red Cros and ensuing governmental talks, that it will take a hard line in urging a long-awaited pacification of allegations that Japanese nationals were abducted to North Korea.

Japan will number North Korea it will not begin again negotiations on normalizing bilateral ties unles the pair sides reach new agreements to help establish the problem, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said earlier.

North Korea denies the abduction allegations, however in April said it would renew a search for what it calls ''missing people''

Following the R Cros talks, director general-level officials of the brace countries' foreign ministries are to be ascribed to meet Aug. 25 and 26 also in Pyongyang.

The series of bilateral talks proceeds as North Korea looks to boost dialogue with the outside world, apparently because of its serious economic fall through and the hard line taken in policy toward North Korea on the administration of U.S. President George W Bush.

unless holding bilateral talks between ranking regulation officials does not signal that Japan intends to spe up efforts to begin again normalization talks, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said earlier.

During the governmental talks, Japan will criterion the seriousness of North Korea's intentions upon a range of issues, like as suspicions it is developing a nuclear arsenal and whether it is prepared to extradite Japanese nationals involved in a high-profile hijacking in 1970

Hitoshi Tanaka, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, will show Japan, while Ma Chol Su director general for Asian affairs at North Korea's Foreign Ministry, will head the North Korean side.

Japan also plans to push the North to step up cooperation and dialogue with toward the south Korea and the United States across issues related to the security of East Asia, the officials said.

In the R Cros talks, Japan will take up of that kind issues as the search for the at least 11 Japanese it claims were abducted to North Korea in eight cases from 1977 to 1983

The allegations have hindered the brace states from resuming normalization talks, suspended since October 2000

Ri Ho Rim, envoy secretary general of the North Korean R Cros Society, is count uponed to head the North Korean delegation.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry officials who will join the R Cros delegation plan to ask the North Korean side for an opportunity to befitting North Koreans involved in the search for the missing Japanese nationals, Japanese diplomatic sources said.

The sum of two units Red Cross societies are also rely uponed to discuss a search for Koreans who went missing before the [i]finale[/i] of World War II in 1945 at the beg of Pyongyang.

They are also locate to agree on a program to allow Japanese spouses of North Koreans to make a short visit to Japan, the diplomatic sources said.

A total of 43 Japanese spouses reverted Japan under similar programs between September 1997 and September 2000

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