BEIJING, May 22 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

BEIJING, May 22 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH DEPARTURE FOR MANILA, CHANGING DATELINE)

Five North Korean asylum-seekers seized by means of Chinese police at a Japanese consulate in China earlier this month left for the Philippines in succession Wednesday en route to their final destination of southern Korea.

The five North Koreans boarded a China Southern Airlines plane and will arrive in Manila in succession Wednesday evening. They will then head for southern Korea the same day and are look fored to reach Seoul early Thursday.

The departure came in succession the heels of the announcement earlier in the day on Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin that the five North Koreans would leave China and arrive in Manila later in the day.

The seizure of the five, which occurr May 8 at the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, northeastern China, l to a diplomatic file between Beijing and Tokyo across the way the Chinese police detained the North Koreans and by what mode to treat the five -- a bond their daughter, the man's mother and his younger brother.

Tokyo claimed the Chinese police set ined the Japanese consulate without its harmony in violation of the Vienna convention upon consular relations. Japan sought to be involved in resolving the issue.

China maintained its police officers acted with the unison of Japanese consulate officials and said it would determine the fate of the five through itself, taking into account international and domestic laws.

Japan was seeking that the asylum-seekers be sent to a third nation which would accept them. If they are sent back to North Korea, they are count uponed to face persecution.

China indicated it will take humanitarian touchs into account.

Although the release of the North Koreans has resolv united of the issues surrounding the incident -- the fate of the five, Japan is still at loggerheads with China across the sovereignty issue arising from the seizure.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi declined to make specific explanations saying Japan is still negotiating with China. He told reporters that the Japanese regulation has no intention of confirming the transfer of the North Koreans, saying it is a matter to be handled according to the Philippine government.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said, ''We are still negotiating. We haven't confirmed (the report).''

The seizure of the North Koreans attracted global attention as a video camera captured images of sum of two units screaming North Korean women and a small girl wrestl to the clod 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 pay by substitution 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-seekers pushed their way into the Spanish Embassy in China and were allowed to advance to South Korea.

forward May 4, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said the number of North Korean defectors to southerly Korea has reached 312 with equal reason far this year, matching the total for the whole of 2000

The data remind ofs 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.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo freshs International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group