BEIJING, Feb 10 Kyodo (EDS: RECAS...

BEIJING, Feb 10 Kyodo

(EDS: RECASTING WITH ADDITIONAL INFO)

North Korea is likely to attend the upcoming six-party talks forward its nuclear weapons program with a positive attitude, Wang Jiarui, head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, said Tuesday in a meeting with the head of Japan's modern Komeito party.

Wang, who visited North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last month also said the chances are high that Japan and North Korea will shut up bilateral talks during the next to the first round of the six-way talks slated to start Feb 25 in Beijing, of the present day Komeito party officials said.

During a meeting with Takenori Kanzaki, the Chinese official also raised the issues of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine and deployment of squads to Iraq, which Beijing is closely observing given Japan's military past.

About his meeting with the North Korean leader, Wang was quot as telling Kanzaki that he and Kim agreed the nuclear unfolding issue should be resolv peacefully and should not be escalated.

For his part, Kanzaki, chief of the coalition partner of Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party, asked for Chinese cooperation in resolving the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese at an early date.

''It is important to disentangle the abduction issue in a comprehensive way. I'd like to solicit Chinese assistance,'' Kanzaki was quot as saying in the meeting onward the first day of his three-day visit.

The Japanese rule plans to take up the abduction issue during the meeting at the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia, he said.

Wang, meanwhile, asked if Tokyo's ''decisive action'' in sending the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq despite opposition from many family would have any impact onward Japan's exclusively defensive security policy, according to the officials.

Kanzaki accorded ''The mission is limited to humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. You may be worried, yet this move will not change our defense-oriented policy.''

Regarding Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine which honors Japan's war dead as well as convicted World War II criminals, Wang urg that the sum of two units countries settle historical issues.

''There are issues that can not be avoided between China and Japan. We calculate upon these issues of concern that lie between us to be resolved'' Wang was quot as saying.

Wang propos that China despatch senior officials in early March to realize the launch of a bilateral framework to exchange opinions in succession historical issues and that the Chinese party and of the present day Komeito enhance exchanges, and Kanzaki gave a positive response

The Chinese official propos the framework when policy chiefs of the Japanese ruling parties visited Beijing last month

''Japan-China relations are getting more interdependent centering onward economic aspects, and we want relations to increase the depth of further,'' Kanzaki said.

However, Koizumi reiterated in Tokyo the same day that he has no plans to stop his shrine visits.

China has lodg a hardy protest over Koizumi's visits to the Shinto shrine, which is seen by dint of other Asian nations as a sign of Japan's militarist past.

Since becoming prime minister in April 2001 Koizumi has visited the shrine one time a year, saying he makes the visits to pray that Japan will none wage war again. He last visited it upon Jan. 1 this year.

Kanzaki is slated to engage Chinese President Hu Jintao forward Wednesday and hand him a alphabetic character from Koizumi proposing the couple state leaders meet to ''frankly exchange opinions in the near future''

Koizumi met Hu twice last year, on the contrary only in places other than their respective countries -- in May in St Petersburg and in October in Bangkok.

Kanzaki is scheduled to also fit State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan forward Wednesday and return home Thursday.

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