The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will hand over metro property used by an elementary school for children of pro-Pyongyang Korean residents to the school's operator under a court-negotiated settlement, both parties said Thursday.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Under the deal reached Thursday at the Tokyo District Court, Tokyo Chosen Gakuen, operator of the school, will pay 170 million yen to the metro government, the owner of the 4,100-sq.-meter part of the school premises in Koto Ward. </PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The land will be handed over to Tokyo Chosen Gakuen on condition that it will be used as school premises.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The agreement puts an end to a suit the metro government filed in 2003 against Tokyo Chosen Gakuen, which operates nine elementary schools, six junior high schools, a high school and a university in Tokyo with backing from North Korea and the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan –

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In the suit, the metropolitan government demanded that Tokyo Chosen Gakuen vacate the land owned by the Port and Harbor Bureau and reimburse about 400 million yen in rents. It argued that the school operator has used the land without a valid contract since 1990.

The metro government allowed the school operator to use the land free for 20 years from 1970.

But Tokyo argued that the contract expired in 1990 and any kind of contract between the two parties ceased to exist.

The operator argued that the land was leased free of charge under historical backgrounds involving Korean residents of Japan, many of whose ancestors were forcibly taken to Japan during Japan's 1919-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. It also said it cannot vacate the premises of the school, which 65 students are attending.