About 50 relatives and supporters of Japanese believed to have been abducted by Pyongyang agents and taken to North Korea staged a sit-in Monday in front of the Foreign Ministry to protest the government's plan to resume food aid to the Stalinist state.

"We oppose food aid at a time when the abduction issue has been shelved," read one placard at the demonstration, which was relatively calm. "The Foreign Ministry should not succumb to pressure," another sign said.

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono met 10 of the protesters to seek their support for the food aid plan.

He told the group that the aid is part of Tokyo's efforts to engage Pyongyang in diplomatic normalization talks, which have been suspended since 1992, a ministry official told the press.

Citing North Korea's recent moves to improve ties with Italy and Australia, Kono explained that Japan needs to seize the opportunity to encourage Pyongyang to come to the bargaining table, the official said.

The only way to resolve the abduction issue, he said, is by engaging in dialogue with North Korea.

He pledged that the government would give the abduction issue top priority in the negotiations with North Korea, the official said.

But Shigeru Yokota, whose daughter, Megumi, disappeared in Niigata Prefecture in 1977 when she was 13, questioned the government's negotiating stance, saying that he wants his daughter to be returned first.

"If the government highlights the humanitarian aspect of the food assistance, we want our sons and daughters back first," Yokota, 67, told reporters after the meeting. "We conveyed to the government our objections to resuming food aid without any progress on the abduction issue."

Megumi Yokota is one of 10 Japanese believed to have been abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s, allegedly for the purpose of tutoring terrorists.

North Korea has denied the allegations but recently promised to look into what it described as "missing" Japanese.

The families and their supporters said they plan to move their sit-in to the Liberal Democratic Party's headquarters today.

Late last week, news reports said the government plans to offer 100,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the U.N. World Food Program, restoring Japan's food aid to the country for the first time in three years.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki confirmed Monday that the government and the LDP are in the final stages of deciding to resume food aid.

Government sources said Aoki is expected to announce the assistance today if the LDP endorses the plan.

As well as the food aid, the sources said the two countries will also resume negotiations in early April on normalizing diplomatic relations. Pyongyang reportedly has demanded food aid as a condition for resuming the normalization negotiations.