In Tokyo, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura says Japan is considering imposing economic sanctions on North Korea.

Appearing on NHK-TV Sunday, Machimura said that talk of applying economic sanctions against the North is emerging within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and that the government is mulling over several possible measures to deal with the Stalinist country.

Machimura said that Tokyo would carefully decide on the necessary policies after closely analyzing the outcome of the third round of working-level talks underway in Pyongyang on the fate of missing Japanese nationals suspected of having being abducted by North Korean agents. He added that economic sanctions are likely to be among the policies under consideration.