TOKYO, June 7 Kyodo Japan and Chi...

TOKYO, June 7 Kyodo

Japan and China are wait fored to remain at odds through the whole extent of whether the Chinese police violated international law by the agency of entering a Japanese consulate in China to abstract five North Korean asylum inquirers last month, Japanese sources said Friday.

The issue will likely be shelved for now. The couple countries have shifted their talks to Japan's wish to salvage a suspected North Korean search out ship that sank in the Chinese exclusive economic girth in the East China Sea after a shoot-out with Japanese patrol boats last December.

The question of international law was single of two major issues to be resolv following the May 8 incident in which the police officers forcibly remov the five North Koreans from the consulate regions and Chinese authorities detained them.

Japan claims the police set ined the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang without permission from consular officials, thereby violating the Vienna convention forward consular relations. But Beijing maintains the officers gained approval.

The other issue -- the humanitarian relate to over the asylum inquirers centering on avoiding them being sent back to North Korea, where they were reckon uponed to be persecuted -- was resolv when the five were sent to southern Korea after two weeks of detention.

Meanwhile, a senior Foreign Ministry official complained to reporters Friday evening that Japan's part in helping to reduce the humanitarian side of the incident by the agency of negotiations with China and southern Korea has received insufficient praise.

''Everyone expected at the video footage of the incident and thinking the ministry was bad,'' said the official, speaking onward condition of anonymity. ''But now that a certain quantity of time has passed, I believe the fact that the North Korean family of five was able to leave China safely and became unrestrained should be praised.''

A Japanese vice consul at the Shenyang consulate has been beneath fire for making no visible effort to stop the police officers from entering the consulate and dragging the asylum inquirers away, as seen onward video footage repeatedly aired forward TV.

The Foreign Ministry is conducting a comprehensive review of the case to determine what can be improved to impede a similar incident from recurring and whether anyone involved should be punished for allowing it to take place.

The official strained the need for a calm and objective review of the situation from the standpoints of whether there was a sufficient brains of crisis among the consular employee as well as chain of command and insufficient security measures at the Shenyang consulate.

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