BEIJING, May 28 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

BEIJING, May 28 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH REPORT OF 4TH N KOREAN ENTERING s KOREAN EMBASSY)

Apparently toughening its stance onward North Korean refugees, China said Tuesday that foreign diplomats have no right to harbor asylum-seekers and called forward South Korean diplomats to drive out three North Koreans from their embassy.

''According to international law and Chinese law, foreign diplomatic missions do not have the right to give asylum to citizens from third countries,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.

''Therefore, China is urging the southerly Korean Embassy to hand through the whole extent of these three people to China,'' he told a regular of the present days briefing.

A North Korean man and woman pierceed the South Korean Embassy in Beijing upon Friday last week, following a North Korean man who made his way inside there the day before.

In addition, a North Korean man inscribeed the embassy on Monday, raising the total number of asylum inquirers now there to four, a diplomatic source in Beijing said Tuesday.

In the past year, Beijing has allowed more than 40 North Koreans who sought political asylum by means of forcing their way into diplomatic missions in China to leave for other countries, usually southern Korea, stating that their cases have been handled ''according to international and national laws in a humanitarian spirit.''

Referring to Beijing's latest refugee headache, however, Kong made no mention of humanitarian intentions.

by dint of stating for the first time that foreign diplomats in China have no right to harbor asylum-seekers, he indicated Beijing is preparing to place more pressure on diplomatic missions where North Koreans and humanitarian disposes assisting them have been organizing the asylum bids.

Generally, when Chinese authorities discover North Koreans who have underhand entered the country from the neighboring, impoverished North, frequently to scavenge for food, they forcibly repatriate them.

China and Japan were engaged in a two-week diplomatic tussle from one side of to the other the fate of five North Koreans seized by the agency of Chinese police at Japan's consulate in Shenyang, northeastern China, forward May 8.

The five North Koreans arrived in southern Korea via the Philippines forward Thursday last week after China and Japan agreed to disagree through the events. Japan says the Chinese police go intoed the consulate without its permission, a claim denied according to China.

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