'If sanctions are applied against the DPRK (North Korea) due to the moves of ultraright forces (in Japan), we will regard it as a declaration of war and promptly react to the action by an effective physical method," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said.

Calls are growing from the public and politicians for the government to impose sanctions on North Korea after Tokyo said bones Pyongyang had identified as those of kidnapped Japanese were from other people.

However, Pyongyang insisted that the human remains were those of Megumi Yokota, abducted in 1977 as a 13-year-old schoolgirl, and that the test results were "cooked up" to serve a political purpose.

The remains had been handed to Japanese authorities by Yokota's husband and it was "unimaginable" he would give them the ashes of anyone else, the spokesman said.

Instead, elements in Japan were trying to revive the abduction issue "because they needed a subterfuge to justify Japan's militarization, hold in check any improvement in bilateral relations and step up their political and military interference in regional issues," he said.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 25, 2004
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