Japan is ready to lift sanctions against North Korea once Pyongyang clarifies its moratorium on missile tests, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi reiterated Friday.

Obuchi made the remark as he met with former U.S. special envoy to North Korea William Perry in Tokyo, just a few hours before Pyongyang announced it would not launch a missile while high-level talks are under way with the United States.

Obuchi also told Perry that Japan strongly supports a new policy toward the North that Perry outlined in a recently completed report, saying Tokyo "will make utmost efforts to send (the new policy) on its way," according to a Japanese official who briefed reporters.

The position was repeated by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka at a news conference later in the day.

"If North Korea expresses both domestically and internationally the decision to freeze missile launching, Japan would consider lifting the sanctions it has been imposing since August last year," Nonaka said.

Japan imposed the sanctions after Pyongyang launched a three-stage rocket, part of which flew over Japan before falling into the Pacific Ocean, on Aug. 31, 1998.

The sanctions include a freeze on food aid and suspension of charter flights to North Korea, as well as a suspension of talks for normalizing bilateral ties.

Perry later told a news conference at the U.S. Embassy that the agreement reached earlier this month on the suspension of missile tests was a "small step" in a much longer process.

Calling the latest agreement a "positive" step, he added that "the longer-term goal will be a long and a bumpy path."

Perry said the bigger challenge is North Korea's compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime, which prohibits the production, deployment, testing and export of missiles with ranges longer than 300 km and with a payload greater than 500 kg.

"That is a much more difficult standard," Perry said, explaining North Korea's compliance with the regime would also cover its mid-range Nodong missile, which was tested in 1993 and has a range of about 1,300 km.