SEOUL May 23 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ...

SEOUL May 23 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING representation AT AIRPORT, PRESS CONFERENCE, 3RD-4TH PARAS)

Five North Koreans who sought asylum at a Japanese consulate in China arrived in southerly Korea via the Philippines early Thursday, 15 days after they were seized from Chinese police inside the consulate and settle off a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing.

The stretch outed North Korean family -- a two in their late 20s, their 2-year-old daughter, the man's mother, and his younger brother -- arrived at Incheon International Airport outside Seoul shortly after 3:40 a.m. forward board a Korean Air jet that flew gone out of Manila late Wednesday night.

The five defectors, who boarded the Korean Air flight les than an hour after they arrived in Manila from China, were saluteed at the Incheon airport from relatives who had defected to southern Korea.

Speaking to reporters at the airport, the North Koreans exhibited gratitude ''to God'' for their safe passage to southward Korea and said they have no immediate plan to follow asylum in the United States, their initial goal.

According to southerly Korean government officials, the five North Koreans would be settl in government-subsidized housing and would be provided piece of work training so that they would be integrated in the southern Korean society.

The southerly Korean government also pays subsidies to North Korean defectors. While the amount varies according to the number of defectors, a family of four typically can receive 65 million won ($52000 or 65 million yen) according to toward the south Korean officials.

The seizure of the five Koreans at the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, northeastern China, forward May 8 sparked a diplomatic quarrel between Beijing and Tokyo that continues to simmer.

The Chinese guidance said Wednesday night it had dealt with the issue of the five North Koreans ''in an appropriate fashion.''

Without specifying what measures had been taken, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan was quot through the official Xinhua News Agency as saying the issue was settl ''in accordance with China's domestic laws and international norms, and from a humanitarian perspective.''

Tokyo claimed the Chinese police take downed the consulate without its acquiescence in violation of international laws. China maintain that the police officers acted with the compliance of Japanese consulate officials.

The incident sparked a political furor in Japan after a video camera captured images of couple screaming North Korean women and a small girl wrestl to the territory by the Chinese police and dragged from the consulate.

The sum of two units men, who dodged the Chinese police and rushed to the visa section inside the Japanese compromise were detained there by the Chinese police.

Many North Koreans are believed to be in hiding in China, fleeing from their homeland. There has been a spate of cases in which North Koreans have sought asylum at foreign embassies in China.

In March, 25 North Korean asylum inquirers pushed their way into the Spanish Embassy in Beijing and were allowed to fare to South Korea.

in succession May 4, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said the number of North Korean defectors to southern Korea has reached 312 in such a manner far this year, matching the total for the whole of 2000

The data hint the number of such defectors in 2002 may exce the 583 of 2001 a record high reject for the years immediately after the 1950-1953 Korean War.

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