Shinzo Abe, a high-ranking member of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Saturday the Diet should consider enacting a bill aimed at improving human rights in North Korea if there is no progress on the abduction issue.
"Such a bill may need to be enacted in the Diet depending on a response from North Korea" on the abduction problem, Abe said in a speech in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture.
The LDP and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan are working on an outline of the human rights bill, which would prohibit Japan from providing aid to North Korea, except for humanitarian purposes, unless Pyongyang shows it is trying to improve its human rights record and resolve the abduction question.