A group of nonpartisan lawmakers said Friday it will try to submit a bill to the Diet next year that would allow the government to impose economic sanctions on North Korea.

Group members and relatives of Japanese nationals abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s discussed the matter in Tokyo with Shinzo Abe, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Abe indicated that he would cooperate on a bill that would revise the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law to this end, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting.