Tokyo must weigh Pyongyang's reaction to such a step.

Slapping economic sanctions on North Korea is easier said than done.

Tokyo officials fear that such a move could sever the existing channel of dialogue with Pyongyang and slam the door on efforts to resolve the abduction issue. The government also wants to see how the Bush administration decides to deal with North Korea.

That gives Japan little room to maneuver, other than to continue to question Pyongyang's sincerity and demand renewed efforts by the regime to get to the truth.

On Saturday, government officials conveyed a strong protest to Pyongyang about human remains and other evidence North Korea handed over in November on some of 10 missing Japanese who Tokyo says were abducted.

The protest Saturday was conveyed by the Japanese Embassy in Beijing to the North Korean Embassy there.

The embassy handed over a written statement that said Pyongyang's explanations were unacceptable. It said Tokyo demands to know the truth and seeks the swift return of surviving abductees.

Japanese officials also handed over the results of DNA testing of cremated remains that Pyongyang had claimed were of Megumi Yokota but actually were of two other people.

Although North Korean Embassy officials promised to convey Tokyo's protest to Pyongyang, they demanded the return of the cremated remains. They insist they are Yokota's.

When the government went public with its findings Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda indicated sanctions could be in the cards.

``The government will have no choice but to resort to severe action,'' Hosoda said, adding that everything depends on Pyongyang's response.

At the same time, the government refused to set a deadline for Pyongyang to respond, instead urging the regime to act with sincerity.

``Tokyo cannot just thrust an ultimatum on Pyongyang,'' said a government source.

``Economic sanctions are one option, but we are not saying they are a priority,'' Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

At one point, the government weighed sending Machimura or special adviser and former Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to North Korea.

But the idea of dispatching Machimura was dropped because officials could not gauge how Pyongyang would react. They concluded such a visit would be meaningless if no progress was made on the abduction issue.

Koizumi takes pride in having opened a new path for bilateral relations through his two visits to Pyongyang. Implementing sanctions almost certainly would dash his goal of normalizing diplomatic ties with the North during his final term in office.

Sanctions could well put an end to efforts to resolve the abduction issue.

``The current channel of communication between Tokyo and Pyongyang could be shut down and efforts to unearth the truth of the abduction problem would be finished,'' said a government source.

Tokyo also is worried about Pyongyang's future participation in six-way talks aimed at ending the nuclear standoff in North Korea.

U.S. President George W. Bush said Dec. 20 that he supports continuation of the process.

``We can't just barge ahead with the abduction issue,'' said a government source.

How relations with North Korea develop after February, once the Bush administration's attention is off Iraq's national assembly elections, is anybody's guess, officials said.

If Pyongyang continues to balk on the abduction and nuclear issues, Washington may decide a hard-line approach works best and terminate the six-party talks.

In that case it could ask the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions against North Korea.

``Then it would be easy for Japan to connect the nuclear issue to that of abductions of Japanese to call for sanctions,'' said a government source.

But that could also raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula to a new high, sources said.(IHT/Asahi: December 27,2004)