Japan lower house passes North Korea sanction bill

By Staff
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TOKYO, June 13 (Reuters) Japan's lower house of parliament today passed a bill requiring the government to impose economic sanctions on North Korea if the North does not help resolve a dispute over Japanese nationals it kidnapped decades ago.

Many Japanese politicians from both ruling and opposition parties and activists have called for punitive steps against Pyongyang for not resolving the row over Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970 and 1980s.

North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 people, eight of whom it says are dead. The other five were repatriated in 2002, and Pyongyang insists the abductee issue is now settled.

But Tokyo wants more information about the eight dead, and about three others it says were also kidnapped. It also demands that Pyongyang return all surviving Japanese abductees.

The bill, jointly prepared by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its junior coalition partner New Komeito and the main opposition Democratic Party, calls for sanctions to be imposed if North Korea does not make progress in resolving human rights violations including the Japanese abductions.

But the legislation does not specify exactly how Tokyo would measure progress on North Korea's human rights record and when the government should slap punitive steps on Pyongyang.

''The government will take into consideration international trends comprehensively,'' it says.

Pyongyang has said it would regard the imposition of sanctions as a ''declaration of war''.

North Korean's Foreign Ministry issued a statement today reiterating that the issue of the abductees had been resolved.

''In trying to internationalise the abduction issue, which had been solved, by deliberately bringing it into bold relief, the Japanese authorities seek to isolate the DPRK (North Korea) by taking advantage of the US hostile policy toward it,'' the statement said.

Many analysts and officials say economic sanctions imposed by Japan alone would not put enough pressure on North Korea to force it to help resolve the abductee issue.

The Japanese bill, which also calls on Tokyo to extend aid to North Koreans defecting from their homeland, is likely to be enacted during the current parliamentary session ending on Sunday, after securing endorsement from the upper house.

Japan and North Korea held talks in Beijing earlier this year on normalising diplomatic ties but made no progress. Tokyo has placed high priority on the abductee issue, making its resolution a condition for improving ties with Pyongyang.

Japan enacted legislation in 2004 allowing the government to impose economic sanctions on North Korea, suspend remittances and trade and take other steps to restrict flows of money and goods there.

The relatives of the Japanese abductees have launched a global campaign to drum up support for their push for stiff measures including economic sanctions against Pyongyang.

REUTERS KD PM1228

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