Japan will go ahead with food aid to North Korea despite its dissatisfaction with Pyongyang's failure to clarify the fate of Japanese citizens kidnapped decades ago, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said today.
North Korea admitted two years ago to kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies, and Tokyo believes another two were also abducted.
Five abductees have returned to Japan but North Korea failed in talks that ended on Sunday to convince Japan of its assertion that the other eight died of illness, accident or suicide and that the missing two never entered the country.
Public outrage over the dispute is fuelling calls for Japan to freeze distribution of 125,500 tonnes of food aid, the second half of a promised humanitarian package, and quickly impose other economic sanctions on Pyongyang.
Mr Koizumi said in parliament, however, that there was still room to talk to the North and that the food aid would go ahead.
The dispute over the abductees, along with concerns over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes, is a major obstacle to establishing diplomatic ties between Pyongyang and Tokyo, something Mr Koizumi reiterated today was a goal.
A decision by Japan to impose economic sanctions - such as halting cash remittances from Koreans living in Japan - could derail efforts to resume six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arms programmes, analysts have said.
Discussions among the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia have been held three times, but Pyongyang declined to attend a previously agreed follow-up in September.