WASHINGTON, April 11 (Yonhap) -- Concern is growing in the United States that Japan's strong position on abductions by North Korea may pose problems as a denuclearization deal moves forward, a congressional researcher said Wednesday.

Emma Chanlett-Avery, Asian affairs analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said Tokyo is losing sympathy on the abduction issue because of its recent remarks denying coercion in its military brothels during World War II.

Japan is a member of the six-party process aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. South and North Korea, the U.S., China and Russia are other participants.

In an agreement reached in February, the governments pledged economic and political incentives to Pyongyang in exchange for a shutdown and eventual dismantlement of its nuclear weapons and programs. Japan, considered a major financial contributor to the deal, said it will not participate in the aid package until Pyongyang fully answers to past kidnappings of Japanese citizens.

North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong-il, had admitted to abducting these citizens to train his spies to pose as Japanese. Tokyo's appeal for Pyongyang to fully account for the missing people has yet to be met.

"I think the issue has become more complicated in the last couple of months as the (U.S.) administration has moved towards negotiations with North Korea within the six-party talks," Chanlett-Avery said at a Washington think tank forum.

"Japan's decision not to participate in aid that is going to North Korea could certainly be problematic in the long run," she said. "I think that is the key element to many people."

Tokyo itself is under fire for its recent remarks on comfort women, a euphemism for tens of thousands of women placed in frontline brothels during World War II to serve sex to Japanese soldiers. Most of the victims were Koreans, whose country was under Japanese colonial rule at the time.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised a furor last month when he said there is no evidence these women were coerced. The remarks drew an unprecedented level of criticism in the U.S. as well, with the State Department asking Tokyo to be more "forthright and responsible" in dealing with the issue.

What many saw as a very regional issue particular to Japan and its neighbors "has been elevated to an international human rights issue," she said.

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