Japan on Dec. 25 handed to North Korean diplomats in Beijing a report concluding that Pyongyang presented false evidence, including human remains, in a bid to prove that eight Japanese people it abducted were dead.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, quoted by the regime's official Korean Central News Agency, said the probe findings were "peppered with words negating the sincere efforts" of Pyongyang.

"Now that it has become clear that the Japanese government has openly joined the ultraright forces in their moves against the DPRK (North Korea) it no longer feels that any DPRK-Japan intergovernment contact is meaningful," KCNA said.

"As we have clarified, we are fully prepared to react to Japan's every provocation with physical strength," it said.

North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese people up to the 1980s to train the regime's spies in Japanese language and culture.

It released five of them in 2002, leading Japan to offer aid, but insists that eight others are dead.

The Japan Times Weekly: Jan. 8, 2005
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