PYONGYANG, North Korea, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Japan and North Korea failed to resolve issues to permit the families of former Japanese abductees to travel to Japan, but talks will continue.
Members of the liaison council for the families of the abductees, who had been demanding an early resolution of the issue, were annoyed by the deadlocked negotiations, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday.
Teruaki Masumoto, 48, the council's deputy secretary general, whose sister Rumiko has been listed as dead by Pyongyang, voiced his dissatisfaction.
"North Korea didn't change its position at all. So what did it call the Japanese delegates to Pyongyang for? It must have done so only to delay Japan imposing economic sanctions on North Korea," he said.
Tsutomu Nishioka, a vice chairman of a support group for the liaison group, said he received a phone call late Friday night from an official of the Cabinet Secretariat's task force on abductees and family members and was told North Korea had agreed to continue negotiations on the abduction issue.
