North Korea said Friday it has disbanded a special committee that was set up in 2014 to look into the whereabouts of missing Japanese who are suspected of being abducted decades ago, in response to Tokyo's decision earlier in the week to impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.

The announcement, conveyed by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, denounced the Japanese government's decision as "provocative" and threatened that it would entail "stronger countermeasures," without specifying what that would involve.

Japan announced Wednesday it will expand sanctions on North Korea to punish Pyongyang for launching a long-range rocket Feb. 7, which is widely viewed as a test of ballistic missile technology, and conducting a fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6, both in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.