Japan decided on Tuesday to extend its sanctions against North
Korea for another six months beyond its original time limit that
ended over the weekend.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's administration made the decision
at a regular cabinet meeting.
Although the Japanese government gave positive evaluation on
North Korea's recent cooperative stance on disabling its nuclear
facilities in the latest round of six-party talks, Japan had to
further extend the sanctions because no development had been
achieved on the issue of North Korea's past abductions of Japanese
nationals, Japanese analysts said.
Japan imposed six-month sanctions in October 2006 following the
nation's test-launches of missiles, banning all of its exports from
entering Japan and prohibiting North Korea-flagged ships from
calling Japanese ports.
The sanctions were first extended in April.
(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2007)
