Japan protested to DPRK on Wednesday after finding the country had provided fake evidence about the fate of Japanese citizens it had abducted.

The Japanese embassy in Beijing lodged the protest with the DPRK delegation in the Chinese capital, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said. The two nations have no diplomatic ties.

Earlier, the Japanese government's top spokesman said tests had confirmed that bones Pyongyang said were the remains of a Japanese abductee were not hers, and that as a result talks with DPRK had hit a major obstacle.

The finding is likely to further increase calls in Japan to slap impoverished DPRK with economic sanctions. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Tokyo was now unlikely to extend the second half of an already promised food aid package.

DPRK admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to help train its spies, and Japan believes another two were also abducted. Five have returned to Japan.

Pyongyang says eight are dead, but Tokyo has been pressing for evidence about those eight and the missing two.

DPRK submitted the bones at talks in Pyongyang in November, saying they were the remains of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977 when she was 13 and who North Korea says committed suicide in 1994.

"We've reached the conclusion that they are not Yokota's," Hosoda told a news conference, adding that DNA tests showed the bones came from more than one person.

"Future Japan-North Korea(DPRK) talks have hit a very big obstacle."

Japan has said that unless doubts about the abductees were cleared up, it would not resume discussions with DPRK on normalising ties.

Source: CD/Agencies