The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said it will send missions to South Korea and to a key Japanese port to consider economic sanctions aimed at forcing the North to come clean on its kidnappings of Japanese citizens.

Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday that Japan's unyielding stance on the abduction issue was one of the key stumbling blocks to the resumption of the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.

Tokyo's position "created serious problems for resumption of the six-party talks," a Chinese source quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il as telling an envoy from Beijing.

Shinzo Abe, acting secretary general of the LDP, dismissed the remarks attributed to Kim.

Sanctions "should not be linked with the resumption of the six-nation talks," Abe told a news conference.

Abe, who is considered a hawk on North Korea, said economic punishment would show "Japan's resolution on North Korea's dishonest handling of the kidnapping issue."

"Economically, it affects the very heart of the authority because, unlike other countries, North Korea's political party and military control trade matters," he said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda also dismissed the report on Kim.

"North Korea has repeatedly said similar things and we don't see any need at all to make an issue of it," said Hosoda, the Japanese government spokesman.

Six LDP lawmakers will visit South Korea for three days from March 4 for talks on sanctions, another party official said.

"As our South Korean counterparts are cautious towards these matters, we want to exchange views and seek understanding from them," the official said.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it kidnapped Japanese people up until the 1980s to train its spies. It allowed five victims and their families to leave in exchange for a Japanese aid package.

The North insists, to Japan's skepticism, that eight more victims are dead. It handed to a Japanese delegation in November ashes and other evidence purporting to prove the deaths, but Japanese DNA tests found the data to be false.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who reached the deal with Kim at a 2002 summit, has so far resisted public pressure for sanctions and said they would only be a last resort.

A ruling party study last week said economic sanctions against North Korea would cost the isolated state 1.2 billion dollars a year, making its economy contract by seven percent.

Another LDP team will visit the western Japan port of Shimonoseki on Sunday and Monday to examine the domestic economic impact of sanctions.

North Korea is a major source of clams, which could be blocked under sanctions.

North Korea said on February 10 that it had produced nuclear weapons and was withdrawing indefinitely from the talks, which aim to halt its nuclear weapons development in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits.

But on Wednesday Kim indicated that the Stalinist state would return to talks if the conditions were right.

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