Tokyo ? In a surprise reversal that demonstrated a new assertiveness, the Japanese government said Wednesday that it would demand that North Korea allow the children of five abductees to be reunited with their parents in Japan, rather than force the parents to go back to Pyongyang.

The Foreign Ministry agreed to delay the scheduled Monday return of the five Japanese after their parents demanded that the government get the abductees’ children out of North Korea, the government broadcaster NHK reported.

North Korean secret agents snatched the five during an espionage program nearly 25 years ago, and they returned to Japan for the first time Oct. 15 for what was to be a two-week visit. As recently as Tuesday, Tokyo had said the five should return to North Korea and decide for themselves where they wanted to live.

Japan and North Korea are scheduled to resume talks next Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on steps toward normalizing diplomatic relations. Public anger at the North Korean government’s admission of the abductions and growing fears about its nuclear-weapons program are provoking the Japanese government to take a harder line.

The five abductees left a total of seven children behind, along with former U.S. serviceman Charles Robert Jenkins, husband of abductee Hitomi Soga. Jenkins is believed to have defected from South Korea in 1965. He and Soga have two college-age daughters.

The Japanese government’s decision reflects strong pressure from the parents of the abductees, who insist that their children cannot freely decide whether they want to remain in Japan as long as their families essentially are held hostage in North Korea.

The policy shift also indicates growing uneasiness after the United States disclosed last week that the North Korean government admitted it was continuing to develop nuclear weapons. It also may suggest that the Japanese think North Korea’s bargaining position has weakened since it admitted it violated a diplomatic agreement with the United States not to develop nuclear weapons.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted last month that his government abducted 13 Japanese in the 1970s and ’80s. He said eight of them had since died.