TOKYO - The United States plans to pursue a case against accused Army deserter Charles Jenkins, but might not demand he be turned over immediately to American custody if he comes to Japan, the U.S. ambassador said today.

Ambassador Howard Baker's comments, to a small group of journalists at the U.S. Embassy, came as Japanese officials - including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi - said the 64-year-old American, who allegedly fled his post to communist North Korea in the 1960s, should be taken to Japan for medical treatment.

Baker said the U.S. government was "sympathetic" to Jenkins' unspecified health problems, and that Washington was not insisting he be treated at a hospital at a U.S. military base if he came to Japan.

"If and when he comes to Japan we will ask for custody - exactly when remains to be seen," Baker said.

"It's certainly possible he could come to Japan, that the United States would insist on its rights, but that actual custody would not be sought or consummated under some circumstances," the ambassador added.

Jenkins, a North Carolina native, is accused of abandoning his U.S. Army unit on the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea in 1965 and defecting to the North. He has lived in the communist state since then, and has appeared in Northern propaganda films.

Since last week, Jenkins has been in Jakarta, Indonesia, meeting with his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga. Soga was kidnapped by Northern agents in 1978 and the two were married in North Korea, but Soga was allowed to return to Japan in 2002. Jenkins and his two daughters remained in North Korea for fear of U.S. prosecution.

Jenkins has apparently never been processed out of the military and presumably would be subject to U.S. military arrest and court-martial were he to return to Japan.

The Japanese government, eager to have Soga's family reunited in Japan, has urged the United States for leniency in Jenkins' case so he could come to Japan without being arrested.

The case has been complicated by Jenkins' health troubles.

He was being examined by Japanese doctors in Indonesia - which doesn't have an extradition treaty with the United States.