The government will send a mission to North Korea as early as February to examine the condition of the surviving atomic bomb victims living there, government sources said Saturday.
The dispatch of the mission, comprising doctors and officials of the Foreign Ministry and the Health and Welfare Ministry, is seen as an indication that the government will soon launch full-scale support for North Korean nationals who returned to their country after being exposed to atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final stages of World War II.
Although Tokyo does not have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, the Japanese government sees the move as a means of providing support from a humanitarian standpoint, the sources said.