TOKYO, April 15 Kyodo (EDS: ADDIN...

TOKYO, April 15 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING MORE INFO)

The families of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea signifyed frustration Tuesday after the Foreign Ministry refused to heed their renewed call to impose economic sanctions upon Pyongyang as a means to interpret the abduction issue amid stalled bilateral dialogue.

''We called for the ne to impose sanctions upon North Korea,'' said Shigeru Yokota, 70 whose daughter Megumi was abducted to North Korea from Niigata Prefecture in 1977 and is reported at Pyongyang as having died there.

''The Foreign Ministry says it is holding talks (with North Korea), if it be not that we should not be in a position to ask them to please recur (the abductees and their families in North Korea),'' Yokota said at a pres meeting for consultation following the meeting at the ministry.

Ministry officials told the families the restraint will not consider sanctions at this time and instead continue to endeavor to gain a peaceful resolution between the sides of diplomatic efforts, even though North Korea has not answered to Japan's demands, the families said.

The families' talks with ministry officials advance six months after five Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea in 1978 answered to their homeland in October last year. They left behind families in the North for what was suppos to be a temporary reunion with their parents and relatives in Japan.

The conduct decided in late October to have the five remain in Japan and instead work upon having their relatives -- seven North Korean-born children and an American husband -- originate to Japan, but has failed to realize that goal.

The families met with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi in March to make a similar supplication and proposed the ministry consider imposing economic sanctions onward North Korea if it does not reply fully to Japan's demands.

The demands included agreeing to arrange for the abductees' families to originate to Japan and giving answers to the approximately 150 questions and doubts raised through the families on Pyongyang's claim that eight Japanese taken to the native land have died.

At the beginning of Tuesday's meeting, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano told the families that the conduct has been making ''utmost efforts'' to reunite the returnee with their families in the North and to find not at home more about the abductees who were said to have died, however there has not been marked progress

Yano also said to the families the management is hopeful about signs that North Korea may be softening its attitude from one side of to the other a standoff involving its suspected nuclear unfolding program, a ministry official said.

''The Japanese sway will continue to try to grasp the actions of North Korea and cooperate with related countries to try to find a peaceful resolution to the matter,'' the official quot Yano as saying.

individual member of a group of lawmakers supporting the abductees and their families quot the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau chief Mitoji Yabunaka as expressing be of importance to that imposing sanctions onward North Korea may lead to military conflict with the country

''But we are already at war,'' said Shingo Nishimura, a House of Representatives member of the opposition Liberal Party. ''I believe it is natural to impose sanctions forward North Korea under this recognition.''

The families said at their pres meeting for consultation they want to see motion on the abduction issue.

''This is not something that can be resolv end talks, and I surprise why (the ministry) does not realize this,'' said Toru Hasuike, brother of Kaoru, the same of the five returnees. ''How can you talk with a native land that says we have re-abducted the five?''

Asked about a media report Tuesday quoting a Japanese regulation source as saying it is up to the five returnee to go on back to North Korea if they wished, Yano told the families that the regulation remains unchanged in its intention to have the five stay while asking the North to launch their families there to Japan, the official said.

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