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N.Korea demands Japan lift sanctions: report

Posted on: Friday, 7 July 2006, 00:22 CDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea has demanded that Japan end sanctions it has imposed in reaction to Pyongyang's missile launches, threatening "stronger action" if Tokyo continues with the measures, Japanese media said on Friday.

"Japan is translating its criticism against us into action," Kyodo news agency quoted Song Il-ho, North Korea's ambassador in charge of diplomatic normalisation talks with Japan, as telling Japanese reporters in Pyongyang.

"This may force us to take stronger physical actions," as a response, he said. Asked what the steps may be, he said, "I leave that to your imagination," Kyodo reported.

Japan banned a North Korean ferry from entering Japanese ports for six months as part of a package of initial sanctions following Pyongyang's launch of a series of missiles that landed in the Japan Sea on Wednesday.

The ferry, the only regular direct link between Japan and North Korea, is an important conduit for carrying money to the isolated communist state.

Tokyo and Washington are pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution on North Korea, and Tokyo has also said it is considering further unilateral sanctions, including limiting cash remittances.

"It is very unfortunate, and I feel indignant," Japan's top government spokesman told reporters on Friday, when asked about the comments.

"I want them to think about who created the reason for relations being in their current state," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

If disputes over North Korea's nuclear program, as well as its missile launches and its abduction of Japanese citizens were not resolved, Pyongyang's economic difficulties and food and energy shortages would not be relieved, Abe added.

The poverty-stricken North abducted at least 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies. Five of them have returned to Japan, and Tokyo wants details on the fate of the remaining eight, who Pyongyang says have died.

Song described Japan's sanctions against North Korea as "unspeakable," saying Pyongyang should be punishing Tokyo for its 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula, Kyodo said.

Japan's sanctions "could bring about devastating consequences, the entire responsibility for which would rest with Japan," Kyodo quoted Song as saying.

Source: REUTERS

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