PM Shinzo Abe refuses to back down on North Korea abduction issue

TOKYO, April 3 (UPI) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denounced a North Korean threat to suspend bilateral negotiations on the issue of abduction.

"We cannot accept it at all," Abe said Friday, a day after North Korea filed a protest with Japan and blamed Japan for bringing a bilateral issue to the United Nations.

Kyodo News Agency reported Abe would approach the abduction issue with a firm stance.

In the 1970s and 1980s, North Korean agents abducted Japanese nationals and in 2002, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted Pyongyang kidnapped 13 Japanese nationals, and issued a verbal apology to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

North Korea returned five of the abductees in 2002, according to Bloomberg.

The recent downturn in North Korea-Japan dialogue is dashing the hopes of Japanese families who await the return of their loved ones.

Shigeo Iizuka, a representative of the families, told Abe they cannot compromise on the return of the abductees – and the victims' families had reached their "physical and mental limits."

Japan and North Korea restarted official talks in 2012 and in May came to an agreement on negotiation principles.

In July Japan lifted unilateral sanctions but by fall Pyongyang had reneged on its promise to provide a preliminary report on the abductees.

Bloomberg reported Tokyo extended North Korea sanctions for two years, which were due to expire in April. North Korea is also under U.N. sanctions for three nuclear tests.

On March 26, fragile North Korea-Japan relations took a turn when Japanese police searched the home of a pro-North Korean resident of Japan who heads Chongryon, a political group that sometimes acts as an intermediary between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

The man was searched in connection to the imports of mushrooms from North Korea. Pyongyang accused Japanese police of an illegal raid.