"If South Korea is willing to accept them, it would be a good outcome," Taro Aso said.
Earlier, the Japanese government said it would treat refugees fleeing North Korea in accordance with humanitarian principles. South Korea said Sunday it would be prepared to accept the family - a father, mother and two boys - who were spotted drifting in a small boat off the port city of Fukaura Saturday.
The family told Japanese police who detained them that they had set sail from North Korea May 27 near the city of Chondjin, on the Chinese border, and were planning to reach South Korea. However, they changed course for Japan out of fear of being intercepted by North Korean border guards. The family said they had fled their homeland because of the absence of human rights in North Korea.
Thousands of people have fled North Korea over the years, most aiming for political asylum in South Korea, but also seeking escape routes through China to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. More than 10,000 people have managed to escape the country in the 56 years of its existence.
Few make it to Japan, however. The only other known case involved 11 North Koreans who arrived in January of 1987 at the port of Fukui, and requested political asylum in South Korea.
Despite demands by Pyongyang that they be returned, the group was sent to South Korea via Taiwan.
