[USFK Forums] LDP panel outlines N. Korea sanctions bill over human rights [Kyodo]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Saturday, March 11, 2006

LDP panel outlines N. Korea sanctions bill over human rights

Friday March 10, 9:48 PM

(Kyodo) _ A panel of Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party on Friday outlined a bill to require the government to impose economic sanctions on North Korea if Japan sees no improvement in Pyongyang's human rights infringements such as past abductions of Japanese.

Panel members said they are hoping that the LDP and its junior coalition partner, the New Komeito party, can jointly present the bill to the current parliamentary session so it can be enacted into law by the session's June 18 end.

The planned bill calls on the government to impose economic sanctions if North Korea's efforts to resolve its human rights violations are judged in Japan to have made no progress in line with laws revised and newly made in 2004.

The laws allow the Japanese government to bar North Korean ships it judges as posing security threats to Japan from calling at its ports and to unilaterally ban trade and cash remittances to the neighboring country even without U.N. authorization.

The laws were revised or established in reaction to a lack of progress in bilateral talks on North Korea's abductions of Japanese, which have prevented the two countries from normalizing ties.

The government has yet to impose any sanctions following the legislation despite the continued dim outlook for a quick resolution of the problem, prompting the panel headed by former parliamentary foreign secretary Ichita Yamamoto, a House of Councillors member of the LDP, to outline the bill.
The outline of the compiled bill also calls settlement of the abduction issue a "duty" of the state.

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