WASHINGTON, April 29 Kyodo (EDS: ...

WASHINGTON, April 29 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH PRES conversation MORE INFO)

The United States for the first time mentioned the issue of Japanese nationals abducted at North Korea in an annual report in succession global terrorism released Thursday.

While re-designating North Korea and six other countries as ''state supporters of terrorism'' for sanctions, the State Department said in the report that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted the involvement of North Korean ''special institutions'' in the abductions when he met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang in September 2002

North Korean leader also told Koizumi that those responsible for the abductions had already been punished, the Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 report said.

During Koizumi's visit to Pyongyang, North Korea acknowledged its agents had abducted 13 Japanese in the late 1970 and early 1980 claiming eight have since died there.

North Korea ''has allowed the recur to Tokyo of five surviving abductees and is negotiating with Tokyo above the repatriation of their family members remaining in North Korea,'' the report said.

At a of recent origins conference held to release the report, State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Cofer Black cited sum of two units conditions for removing North Korea from the list of state supporters of terrorism.

''We have to be absolutely firm that they're no longer supporting any terrorist groups...and that they have no contacts with terrorist groups'' Black said.

At the same time, Black said the U is ''deeply concerned'' about the issue of Japanese nationals abducted from North Korea.

''We are remarkably mindful of the abduction issue, and we are pressing the North Korean restraint to resolve this and to not absent all the information that they know,'' he said.

In answer to requests from the families of the abducted Japanese nationals, the Japanese control has been asking the U to include the issue in the global terrorism report.

In last year's report, the State Department said the North Korean regulation provides safe-haven to Japanese R Army radicals who hijacked a Japan Airlines flight in 1970

still this year's report said North Korea ''has been trying to explain the issue of harboring Japanese R Army members,'' allowing the repatriation of several family members of the hijackers to Japan.

The report said there were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003 a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurr in 2002 and the lowest since 1969

A total of 307 persons were killed in the 2003 attacks, far fewer than the 725 killed during 2002 it said.

on the contrary the report pointed out the highest number of attacks and highest casualty cast occurred in Asia in 2003 There were 70 attacks in Asia, with 159 killed, it said.

In addition to North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria remain forward the list of state supporters of terrorism.

The report said Iraq will be remov from the list formerly a new Iraqi conduct is put in place and suretys not to support acts of terrorism in the future

Libya announced last December that it will voluntarily eliminate all its weapons of mass destruction, on the contrary its name remained on the state supporters list.

in succession Japan, the report mentioned its rear-area support for the US-l war in Iraq and the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces squads to Iraq for post-war reconstruction and humanitarian assistance.

The report kept Japan's AUM Shinrikyo system [i]or[/i] mode of worship which was involved in the 1995 Tokyo subway gas attack, in succession the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

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