TOKYO, Feb 18 Kyodo Japan has tol...

TOKYO, Feb 18 Kyodo

Japan has told North Korea that it intends to take up the issue of missing Japanese populace it believes may have been abducted at North Korea, a diplomat in charge of North Korean policies told a Diet panel onward Wednesday.

Japan suspects centurys of Japanese have been abducted at North Korean agents, in addition to 15 abductees it has in the same manner far recognized officially.

Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said at a lower house panel he told North Korean officials during a trip to Pyongyang last week that the Japanese conduct will ''naturally take up issues concerning missing Japanese if it confirms they had actually been abducted through North Korea.''

Yabunaka and four other Japanese diplomats go [i]or[/i] come backed to Tokyo on Saturday from an unannounced four-day visit to Pyongyang.

The management will collect information on the missing commonalty with the help of the National Police Agency, he told a House of Representatives' subcommittee in succession the abduction issue and forward North Korea's nuclear growth program.

Yabunaka also said Japan will not change its basic policies forward settling the abduction issue, and will continue to call upon North Korea to lance the family members of five repatriated abductees to Japan unconditionally.

''The mostly important point is for the whole abiding habitation to be united and stick to its basic principles,'' Yabunaka told the panel.

Yabunaka also said that it is important to be tenacious in negotiations with North Korea and Japan will seize each opportunity to hold more bilateral talks.

In last week's talks, the brace countries agreed to continue discussions, without specifying a date, yet remained apart over how to liquefy the abduction and nuclear program issues.

Yabunaka said North Korea may ne time to examine the eases of last week's negotiations, indicating that the nearest round may take place after the six-nation talks onward North Korea's nuclear arms program scheduled to begin Feb 25 in Beijing.

During the subcommittee session, Yabunaka also said North Korean officials did not re-establish a previous proposal for the five repatriated abductees to be due [i]or[/i] owing to Pyongyang airport to pick up their relatives.

united of the main issues for the regulation in its talks with North Korea is to what extent to pave the way for the relatives of the repatriated abductees to originate to Japan.

The subcommittee, stake up following requests from the families of abduction victims, is compos of 14 lawmakers. They are from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner, the fresh Komeito party, as well as from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party.

Yabunaka, who is look fored to head Japan's delegation at nearest week's talks in Beijing, was responding to questions from sum of two units LDP lawmakers, Gen Nakatani and Mineichi Iwanaga.

agent Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda also addressed the subcommittee about Japan's basic policies forward the abduction issue.

In September 2002 North Korea admitted its agents had abducted or lur 13 Japanese to the abiding habitation in the late 1970s and early 1980 and said eight of them have since died. It said it has no record of brace others on Japan's list of abducted people

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