(Adds prime minister, pro-North Korea group comments)

By Teruaki Ueno and Linda Sieg

TOKYO, April 11 (Reuters) - Japan extended economic sanctions on North Korea on Friday for another six months, citing the lack of a breakthrough on Pyongyang's nuclear programmes and its past abductions of Japanese citizens.

Tokyo first imposed sanctions in October 2006 after North Korea undertook a nuclear test and test-launched ballistic missiles.

"We need to watch closely how (North Korea) proceeds to resolve the nuclear, abduction and missile issues," Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters.

"North Korea probably wants the sanctions to be lifted, so that must mean they are having an effect."

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said on Wednesday that the United States and North Korea have made progress but no breakthrough towards settling Pyongyang's long-delayed declaration of its nuclear activities.

Six-party talks aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions have stalled pending Pyongyang's full accounting of nuclear activities, including the plutonium that powered its first and only nuclear test blast in October 2006. [ID:nSEO196265]

The declaration was due at the end of 2007 after negotiators settled on a deal earlier that year offering North Korea energy and economic aid in return for disarmament steps.

A pro-Pyongyang group of ethnic Koreans in Japan said they were angered by the extention of the sanctions, which include a ban on visits by a North Korean ferry to Japan.

"We see the extension of the sanctions by the Japanese government as a deliberate political provocation against North Korea," the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) said in a statement.

"We condemn it as a cruel and hostile act that not only hurts ties between North Korea and Japan, but seeks to continue political repression and human rights violations against (our group) and ethnic North Koreans in Japan."

Chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura reiterated that Tokyo would not forge diplomatic ties with Pyongyang unless the reclusive communist state resolves the row over Japanese nationals abducted decades ago to help train North Korean spies in language and custom.

The fate of the abductees is a highly emotive issue in Japan.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese, sparking outrage in Japan.

Five of them were repatriated that same year, but Pyongyang says the other eight are dead. Tokyo wants more information about the eight and four others it says were also kidnapped, and wants any survivors sent home.

Japan and North Korea last held talks in September on establishing diplomatic ties but failed to make any visible progress.

"We hope North Korea will have serious dialogue with us and take concrete steps," Machimura said.

The two-way talks are one building block in a six-party process also involving the United States, China, South Korea and Russia aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arms.

Japan's total trade with North Korea amounted to about $180 million in 2005, about half that of 2002, and has dwindled to a trickle in 2006. (Editing by Jerry Norton)

AlertNet news is provided by