The ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has suggested to the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that certain sanctions against North Korea be strengthened due to a lack of progress on the abduction issue.

Keiji Furuya, the Abe government’s point man on the abduction issue, said that certain sanctions that were dropped last July, namely restrictions on remittances for purposes other than humanitarian causes, should be reinstituted.

The former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted in 2002 that the DPRK abducted 13 Japanese civilians, who were to be used to train North Koreans in Japanese language and culture