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)