(For main story on North Korea, click on [SP145294])

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Japan played down fears on Friday that taking North Korea off a U.S. terrorism blacklist would dim its chances of settling a feud over citizens abducted by Pyongyang decades ago, as some media charged the step would deeply damage Tokyo's ties with close security ally Washington.

The dispute with Pyongyang over the fate of people abducted decades ago to help train spies in Japan's language and culture is an emotive topic for many Japanese and a major obstacle to normalising ties between the two wary neighbours.

North Korea handed over a long-delayed inventory of its atomic programmes on Thursday, prompting Washington to begin a process -- expected to take 45 days -- to remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and ease some sanctions.

The news sparked cries of outrage and distress from relatives of those Japanese snatched away in the 1970s and 1980s and from some politicians, who fear that a lessening of U.S. pressure on Pyongyang will make any resolution of the dispute unlikely.

Liberal Japanese newspaper Asahi cast North Korea's report as a positive step towards easing the nuclear threat, but media were mostly sceptical about whether Pyongyang would stick to a deal.

"If North Korea resorts to deceptive tactics or breaks its agreement, the United States should immediately discard its policy of lifting its sanction measures against North Korea," said the conservative Yomiuri newspaper.

The Nikkei business daily went further, blasting Washington's decision to delist the North. "This decision has shown the differences in the perception of the North Korean threat between Japan and the United States," the paper said in an editorial.

"A common perception of a threat is the premise of an alliance, and without that the U.S.-Japan security treaty is close to scrap paper," it said.

TRUMP CARD LOST?

Japan was shocked in 1998 when North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile that passed over its territory.

Tokyo imposed its current sanctions in 2006 after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and test-launched ballistic missiles.

But the abductee issue has grabbed huge media attention ever since North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese. Five were repatriated that year, but Japan wants more information about eight who the North insists are dead and another four Japan says were also kidnapped.

Tokyo also wants any survivors sent home.

Japanese leaders including Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, an advocate of dialogue with the North, tried to allay concerns that Tokyo had lost its trump card in negotiations.

"It's not as if Japan has no cards left to deal with North Korea. We will play our cards as needed, and do our best to resolve the abductee issue," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference.

Japan has said it will lift some sanctions on the North if it keeps a pledge to reopen an investigation into the abductions.

But Tokyo insists it will not provide energy aid as part of a multilateral deal aimed at ending the secretive communist state's nuclear programme unless the abduction issue is settled.

That stance could put it at odds with others in the six-party talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions that also include the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

Some experts said media anger, if not doubts, would fade over time, especially if North Korea kept its promise to reopen the probe into the fate of the abductees.

"One could say Japan was betrayed by (U.S. President George W.) Bush, but then what? The only option for Japan is to negotiate," said Masao Okonogi, a Korea expert at Tokyo's Keio University. (Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by Michael Watson)

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