Japan's deputy chief cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, said Saturday that it was necessary to apply pressure on North Korea to solve problems, implying that dialogue with the communist country was futile. At a speech in Yokohama, Abe said that if North Korea was a partner that negotiated in good faith, it would not smuggle narcotics, make counterfeit money and kidnap 13-year-old girls. He said Pyongyang behaved like a gangster group, and that anyone that stressed that only dialogue should be used to influence it was out of his mind.

The Japanese media reported Sunday that a city in Ibaraki prefecture, Tsuchiura, became the first city to suspend tax breaks for facilities related to the pro-North group Chosen Soren. A diplomatic source in Tokyo said the suspension carried an intrinsic message - that remittances by the group to North Korea should stop.

In Honolulu, diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan, in a meeting referred to as the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group, discussed measures designed to eliminate the North's illegal activities. The group said it would promote cooperation not only among its three members but also with other international organizations. Observers said that though the group's decisions did not amount to explicit sanctions, it meant that Seoul was joining in moves approaching sanctions being led by the United States and Japan, as the group will apply exert strong pressure to impede any illegal activity the North may engage in, such as smuggling narcotics or weapons. (Jung Kwon-hyoung, khjung@chosun.com )