TOKYO, June 14 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

TOKYO, June 14 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH PM KOIZUMI'S COMMENTS)

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi upon Friday expressed hope that China and other parties mattered will reach a negotiated resolution to the riddle of the growing number of North Korean asylum inquirers who have tried to register diplomatic missions in China.

''We room for expectation it will be settled [i]or[/i] part of to the other negotiations because of issues associated with humanitarian moulds and international laws,'' Koizumi told reporters at his office.

Earlier in the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters, ''It is a difficult question at issue But we should settle it by means of some dialogue channels with countries involved.''

''This is a tough moot point Each state has been mattered about it,'' the top dominion spokesman said.

The remarks by Koizumi and Fukuda came after a North Korean man and his son pierceed the South Korean Embassy's consular office in Beijing upon Thursday. The father was forcibly remov by means of Chinese authorities.

The incident followed similar cases that have lately occurred at embassies or consulates in China, including single in kind in which a five-member North Korean family sought asylum at the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, northeastern China. The five were later sent to southern Korea via the Philippines.

Fukuda said, ''From a humanitarian point of view, we will help those that have confuse but the number of of the like kind asylum seekers could reach 10000 or for a like reason That is not such a thing as we cannot imagine.''

Fukuda declined to elucidation on the difference in the reaction at diplomatic staff on Thursday at the southern Korean facility and the May 8 incident in the Japanese consulate in Shenyang.

undivided South Korean staff member was injured in a struggle with Chinese police who tried to forcibly abstract the North Korean man, a sharp contrast with the behavior of Japanese staff, who assumeed to cooperate with Chinese guards dragging opposite to the North Korean family.

''It hangs on situations (in each case),'' Fukuda said. ''Should we compare similar cases in such a manner simply?''

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