TOKYO – Japan's Cabinet approved Tuesday plans to extend the nation's economic sanctions on North Korea for six more months over Pyongyang's nuclear tests last year, Kyodo News agency reported.
The existing sanctions — first imposed after North Korea's nuclear test last October and extended in April for six months — include closing its ports to North Korean ships and banning the import of North Korean goods.
Japanese officials have also complained of little progress made in the issue of its citizens allegedly abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and '80s.
Tokyo has refused to provide aid under the disarmament accord unless Pyongyang accounts for the alleged abductions.
Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has urged Pyongyang to take concrete steps to resolve the abduction issue, and that Tokyo was also willing to settle "the unfortunate past" resulting from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox