In a move to exert more pressure on North Korea, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has decided to draft human rights legislation aimed specifically at people fleeing the reclusive state.

The proposed legislation is being touted as a ``third plank'' in efforts to get North Korea to resolve the decades-old abduction issue.

Shinzo Abe, acting LDP secretary-general, came straight to the point.

``By supporting defectors from North Korea, we will be encouraging a regime change (in Pyongyang),'' said Abe, who heads the LDP task force dealing with the abduction issue.

The bill will likely be similar to the North Korea Human Rights Act signed into law in October by U.S. President George W. Bush.

The Japanese version would also focus on the human rights of North Koreans and include provisions for providing assistance to defectors.

Sources said a working group will be set up soon within the party task force dealing with the abduction issue.

In last year's ordinary Diet session, the LDP was the driving force behind two related bills that passed into law. One would stop money transfers to North Korea even if U.N. sanctions were not in place. The other allows the government to ban port calls by North Korean ships.

Both pieces of legislation have the potential to inflict considerable economic damage on the impoverished North.

But some LDP lawmakers are urging caution on grounds that larger problems could arise if the regime headed by Kim Jong Il collapses as a result of Tokyo's legislative moves.

The main opposition party, Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), has already compiled the outline of a bill aimed at protecting the rights of fleeing North Koreans.

Now that the LDP is submitting its own proposed legislation, there is a strong possibility that some version of the two bills will pass into law during the Diet session opening Jan. 21.

The American law bans all assistance to North Korea outside of humanitarian support until Pyongyang can demonstrate a big improvement in its human rights situation.

The law also opens the door for North Korean defectors to settle in the United States.

The LDP's decision to compile a similar bill was likely spurred by growing public anger at North Korea's intransigence on the abduction issue.

Anti-North Korea sentiment soared in December with revelations that human remains brought back from the North were not of abductee Megumi Yokota but of two other people.

Many LDP politicians immediately called for economic sanctions to be imposed against North Korea.

Still, many LDP officials fear a strong North Korean backlash if the party introduces a tough human rights bill.

They note that almost no progress has been made in bilateral negotiations over the abduction issue, nor six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons development programs.

Some officials in Abe's group say the very act of considering human rights legislation might also serve as a form of diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.(IHT/Asahi: January 13,2005)