Tokyo - Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said that the US decision to remove North Korea from Washington's blacklist of states that support terrorism was "extremely regrettable."

He made the comments to the Kyodo news agency during Saturday's meeting of G7 finance ministers in Washington.

Nakagawa noted the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Those cases have not all been resolved.

"I believe abductions amount to terrorist acts," Nakagawa said. (dpa)