"I think there are points for which the government must repent," Koizumi told reporters, when asked to react to Pyongyang's admission that most of the Japanese taken to North Korea were no longer alive.

His comments one day after his historic summit in North Korea came as the Japanese government, and the foreign ministry in particular, was strongly criticised for failing to resolve the abduction cases sooner.

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, on a trip to Washington, defended her ministry and insisted it had done its best.

The kidnap issue "came to a painful and unthinkable conclusion. I am mortified that it came to this," Kawaguchi told reporters.

Kawaguchi said Japan would press North Korea to explain details of the deaths of the victims, who North Korea acknowledged it snatched in the 1970s and 1980s to use as language teachers and to help spies infiltrate South Korea.

Koizumi is due to meet the families of all the kidnapped Japanese nationals on September 27 to tell them what was discussed at the summit.

The prime minister and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il met in Pyongyang Tuesday for a landmark summit in which Kim apologised for the kidnapping of Japanese citizens.

North said six of 11 people officially identified by Japan as having been taken by North Korean agents had subsequently died.

Four are still alive while one was not confirmed to have entered the country. Two others not on the Japanese list were confirmed dead and one unidentified individual is alive.

The revelation shocked the Japanese public, triggering increased threats and abuse against North Korean nationals living here.

Schools for Koreans living in Japan who align themselves with North Korea have encouraged pupils not to come to school in traditional Korean dress, said Kim Hun, spokesman for the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chonryon.

North Korean residents, including young people born and raised in Japan, face entrenched discrimination and are occassionally assaulted when frictions arise between Tokyo and Pyongyang, Kim said.

"We have received around 100 threatening calls to our office since last night up to this morning, spouting harsh, cruel words at us," Kim said from his Tokyo office.

Meanwhile, Japanese officials said they were trying to work out a plan for the early return of surviving Japanese nationals.

"We are hoping for an early return of the ... individuals," said a foreign ministry spokeswoman.

The Japanese Red Cross Society said it would work with Japanese diplomats to secure their return.

Following the revelation of the deaths, the Japanese media was in no mood for reconciliation with a country which editorials said had shown its true colours.

"(Kim Jong-Il's) remarks are tantamount to acknowledging Pyongyang sponsored these crimes and prove that North Korea was indeed a terrorist state," the top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun argued in an editorial.

"The agreement on the resumption of normalisation talks between Japan and North Korea pales before the act of international terrorism that North Korea finally has admitted carrying out," it said.

Japan and North Korea also agreed at the summit to reopen negotiations to establish normal diplomatic relations. The North Korean leader also promised to extend a moratorium on missile tests and agreed to observe international nuclear and security conventions.

Koizumi in turn apologized for Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula and suggested economic aid could follow normalisation.

While cautiously welcoming the moves, most papers recalled that North Korea had a poor record of keeping promises and suggested they were part of cynical ploy to get badly needed Japanese money.

hih/ja/pch

Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 180838)

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