PYONGYANG, North Korea, September 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - During an unprecedented summit with Japan, seen as a big step in the path of world peace, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il Tuesday, September 17, 2002, promised to halt missile tests indefinitely and apologized for kidnapping Japanese citizens.

His surprise acknowledgement of the abductions removed the main obstacle to normalization of relations, which could bring billions of dollars in aid to its moribund economy as the government experiments with market-oriented reforms. This also means easing one of the tense spots on the global scene threatening world security.

For his part, Koizumi, the first Japanese Premier to visit North Korea, extended an apology for the colonial occupation and said it would consider providing economic aid in grants and loans under normalization talks which would resume.

"Japan humbly recognized the historical fact that it caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of Korea through its past colonial rule and expressed feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology," the statement said.

"He (Kim) promised to freeze missile firing indefinitely" beyond a moratorium until 2003, Koizumi told a news conference after the summit, of two and a half hours, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In August 1998, North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile over north eastern Japan, sparking security fears in east Asia.

"I have strongly protested to Chairman Kim over the abduction issue. The chairman sincerely admitted that it was done by North Koreans concerned in the past," Koizumi said. "He said it was regretful and he would apologize for the matter which should not reoccur in the future."

Kim, chairman of the National Defense Commission and General Secretary of the all-powerful Workers Party, was also made to answer the U.S. concerns, Koizumi said.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who has branded North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, urged Koizumi in New York last week to raise up front concerns over the communist state's development of weapons of mass destruction and missile exports.

Kim, whose isolated state is making a new push for international recognition and rapprochement with South Korea, was quoted as telling Koizumi on relations with Washington, "We have always left the door open for dialogue."

However, he reiterated Pyongyang's claim it was reluctant on open its nuclear facilities to international inspections because of a delay in the supply of light-water nuclear reactors under a 1994 agreement with the United States.

The accord has put a freeze on North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program.

In a joint statement, Kim and Koizumi agreed to resume decade-old rapprochement talks next month after a break of two years and to consult each other on sensitive security issues.

North Korea's Persistent denial of the kidnap cases and its insistence on compensation for Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula blocked an improvement of ties between the estranged Asian neighbors.

At the summit, the North Korean side confirmed that four Japanese nationals, snatched in the 1970s and 1980s by North Korean agents, were still alive but the others died.

Japan insisted that at least 11 Japanese were kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s in order to train spies in Japanese language and customs.

"The people responsible for the incident have been sternly punished," Kim was quoted by a Japanese official as telling Koizumi.

Kim also promised to further investigate circumstances of the kidnapping and deaths which were attributed to "diseases, natural disasters and others," the official said.

He blamed the kidnappings on elements in a special organization who "advocated blind and heroic ideals" and he had no prior knowledge of the acts.

The joint statement was signed by Kim and Koizumi amid an ovation only from the Korean side, according to reporters on the spot.

"If the spirit of the statement is broken, there will be no implementation of economic aid," a senior Japanese official said.

The summit was timed to coincide with a thaw of tension on the Korean peninsula, which has been divided since the colonial era ended with Japan's defeat in World War II.

With Russia's backing, the two Koreas were scheduled to launch work Wednesday, September 18, to link their railways and connect them to the trans-Siberian trunk stretching to Europe, a project estimated to cost 2.2 billion dollars to build.

Hideshi Takesada, a professor at Tokyo's National Institute for Defense Studies, said that Russia and two Koreas were "playing together to woo cash from Japan's purse" for what was touted as an "iron silk road."