The government began consulting Monday with Liberal Democratic Party members on how Japan can take in and support the five known surviving Japanese abducted by North Korea and their immediate families still in the North, government officials said.

Participants in the talks at the Diet building discussed what laws can be applied to support the abductees and possibly introduce new bills to facilitate the assistance, the officials said.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told senior LDP members, including Jinen Nagase, deputy chief of the LDP Policy Affairs Research Council, about the government's plans on assisting the five abductees and their families. Abe is also an LDP lawmaker.

Abe and the LDP lawmakers agreed that the proposed new legislation should clear the Diet during the current session that runs through mid-December.

Based on talks with the five abductees -- two couples and a woman -- now back in Japan, and the local governments of their hometowns, the national government is planning to provide a lump sum in financial aid to help them live in Japan, should Pyongyang release the abductees' offspring and the woman's American husband.

The support measures will also include providing housing, job training and financial support for employers, as well as special provisions to allow the abductees to receive pensions and help their North Korean-born children receive education.

Existing laws do not provide for housing or special pension considerations.

The returnees are Yasushi Chimura and his wife, Fukie, both 47, from Obama, Fukui Prefecture; Kaoru Hasuike, 45, and his wife, Yukiko, 46, from Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture; and Hitomi Soga, 43, from Mano on Niigata's Sado Island.

Special abductee unit

KASHIWAZAKI, Niigata Pref. (Kyodo) The Kashiwazaki Municipal Government set up a special division Monday to help support Kaoru Hasuike and his wife, Yukiko, both of whom were abducted by North Korea in 1978 and are now back in Japan.

The move is part of efforts to help the couple resettle in Japan permanently and provide support for their offspring still in North Korea and families in Japan.

The new division will include six local government officials from the personnel and citizen activities divisions, including Takehiro Araki, chief of the section in charge of special activities.

The entity will work with its counterparts in the central and prefectural governments to help the couple and their family members, the officials said.

It will help provide health counseling and vocational training for the couple, and educational support for their North Korean-born children if Pyongyang allows the offspring to reunite with their parents in Japan.

Hasuike, 45, and his 46-year-old wife are two of the five known surviving Japanese abductees who returned from North Korea on Oct. 15.

The couple's two children remain in North Korea, and Tokyo is negotiating with Pyongyang to get the two out, along with the immediate families of the other three abductees.

The city has already offered Hasuike a job as part of efforts to help the couple resettle in the country.