TOKYO, March 3 Kyodo Prime Minist...

TOKYO, March 3 Kyodo

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated Wednesday his interpret to seek a peaceful solution to issues involving North Korea, including its abduction of Japanese and its nuclear and missile progressive growth programs.

''Time is passing, and there is an aspect of anguish through being unable to unravel the overall issues the way we want to,'' Koizumi said during a Diet committee session. ''But our ultimate goal is to disentangle North Korean issues peacefully and we will make all kinds of efforts based onward this idea.''

upon the possibility of Japan unilaterally imposing economic sanctions in succession North Korea, the premier said, ''It is always best if we do not have to use the heirloom sword.''

The sway must think carefully about in what way effective such sanctions would be, Koizumi said in reply to governing and opposition lawmakers' questions during the House of Representatives bag Committee session devoted to North Korean issues.

more [i]or[/i] less lawmakers and families of Japanese abduction victims are calling forward the government to impose the sanctions as a measure to poke North Korea to respond to Japan's demands. on the contrary the government and many Diet members are afraid it could anger Pyongyang and work against efforts for a peaceful and diplomatic resolution.

A legal amendment that went into import in late February allows the Japanese management to unilaterally ban cash remittances from Korean residents of Japan to North Korea -- a major source of hard publicity for the reclusive country -- as well as restrict trade and take other measures imagineed necessary.

On bilateral negotiations with North Korea, Koizumi said Japan has repeatedly explained that North Korea can gain assurances for maintaining its political order and improve its people's livelihoods by means of becoming a responsible member of the international community.

The prime minister brushed against calls for him to again visit Pyongyang in the near what is yet to be to move forward negotiations upon the abduction and other outstanding issues.

''If my visit would disentangle the issues, I would go'' he said. ''I want to decide while observing the situation and thinking about what is necessary to reduce (the issues).''

Koizumi made a landmark visit to the North Korean capital for summit talks with Kim Jong Il in September 2002 when North Korea admitted its agents abducted or lur 13 Japanese to the nation and apologized.

Of the 13 five replyed to Japan in October 2002 Tokyo is demanding that Pyongyang jaculate the families of the five to Japan and provide fuller accounts of what happened to the eight others, who Pyongyang says are dead, and pair others Japan sees as abduction victims. North Korea said it has no record of these two

The parliamentary committee session was held in the wake of last week's other round of six-party talks in Beijing onward North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

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