The father of abductee Megumi Yokota repeated Thursday that the government should impose immediate economic sanctions on North Korea while maintaining an open channel for bilateral dialogue.

The government said Wednesday that DNA tests showed the remains North Korea presented to Japanese officials during bilateral talks in Pyongyang last month are not those of Shigeru Yokota's daughter, who was kidnapped in 1977 at age 13.

The findings have fueled skepticism over North Korea's sincerity in dealing with the abduction issue and have prompted calls for the government to slap sanctions on the reclusive state.

"After sanctions are imposed, negotiations might temporarily stall," Yokota said. "There might be negative effects, but sanctions are necessary to resolve the abduction issue."

Punitive measures would probably include banning cash remittances to and trade with North Korea, as well as prohibiting North Korean ships from entering Japan's ports.

Asked whether Tokyo should terminate dialogue with North Korea altogether, however, Yokota said: "Some people say we should stop negotiations. But I don't think the abduction issue will be resolved without talks."

He also questioned whether the man who spoke with Japanese officials in Pyongyang, claiming to be Kim Chol Jun, Megumi's husband, was indeed her spouse. The man has refused to provide samples for DNA analysis.

According to the North, Megumi married a North Korean and gave birth to a daughter, Kim Hye Gyong, but became depressed and committed suicide in the early 1990s.

The man was quoted as telling the officials that he had exhumed Megumi's remains, cremated them and kept them in a cinerary urn.

"There is no way Megumi's remains could have been mixed up with those of someone else," Yokota said. "If the remains had been fabricated," then so has the purported husband's claim.

The government has said it managed to get "samples" from the man and is currently conducting tests to find out whether he is indeed the father of Kim Hye Gyong, who has been verified through DNA tests as being Megumi's daughter.

Megumi's mother, Sakie Yokota, who was also present during the interview, urged the government to negotiate with the North under the assumption that all the abductees are alive.

"I am enraged," she said. "Japan has been insulted and ridiculed to such an extent that we all need to get angry."

DNA results uncover lie DNA tests have confirmed that cremated remains that Tokyo received from North Korea are not those of Japanese abductee Kaoru Matsuki, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Thursday.

North Korea gave the bone fragments to visiting Japanese officials in November, claiming they could be Matsuki's, because they had been collected from the plot of land where he had been buried. Pyongyang had earlier said Matsuki died in a car accident in 1996, but said his grave had been washed away in a flood.

Matsuki was kidnapped from Spain in 1980 at age 26.

The North had also previously handed what it said were Matsuki's remains to Japan during a summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in September 2002.

In handing over the latest fragments, the North said they were collected from a wide area, and that the bones of other people might be mixed among them. But while the tests detected DNA of several people, none were of Matsuki.