Japan has refused to give fuel to impoverished Pyongyang as promised under a six-nation disarmament deal until North Korea does more to account for Japanese kidnapped by the communist state in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies.

The United States said Tuesday it was confident the fuel would be delivered, amid reports it had asked Australia or other countries outside the six-nation talks to pick up Japan's share of the aid.

"Other countries fully understand the abduction issue," Aso told reporters.

Asked whether Japan was becoming isolated, Aso said: "Absolutely not. That kind of talk is a victim's mentality."

Japan, Asia's largest economy, previously argued that its financial clout would influence North Korea to do more on the abduction row, which stirs deep emotion among the Japanese public.

The six-party framework involves the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Under a February 2007 deal, North Korea was to receive one million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid from the other five countries in return for disabling its plutonium-producing plants.

North Korea on Tuesday renewed its demands that Japan be booted from the six-nation talks.

"It is our view that Japan has already lost the qualification to participate in the six-party talks as it has obstructed the talks so far," the North's official Minju Joson said, as quoted by the state Korean Central News Agency.

"Japan is making desperate efforts to dodge the fulfillment of the commitment on which an agreement was reached among the six parties," it said.

North Korea in 2002 returned five abduction victims and their families and said the case was closed. But under US pressure, the North agreed in June to reopen the probe.