Japan will likely extend its sanctions against North Korea because of Pyongyang's delay in reporting into its abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago, the Nikkei business daily reported yesterday without citing sources.

The government is poised to decide this Tuesday on an extension to a trade embargo on North Korea and a ban on North Korea charter flights the Nikkei said. In 2002, North Korea admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies. Five of those abductees and their families later returned to Japan. North Korea said that the remaining eight were dead and that the issue was closed, but Japan has been pressing for more information.