PYONGYANG, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has slammed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for aggravating "the sanctions and pressure campaign against Pyongyang" through rhetoric.

A spokesman for the Institute for Studies of Japan of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Thursday that during Abe's visit to some European countries, he mentioned the DPRK's "nuclear and missile development" and "abduction issue" every time he discussed bilateral relations with these countries, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

Tokyo claims the DPRK abducted some Japanese citizens in the 1970s. Pyongyang has adamantly denied the accusation.

The spokesman also said that Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono claimed that the DPRK was trying to earn time to continue its nuclear and missile program by seeking an inter-Korean detente and staging "smiling diplomacy" elsewhere during his visit to Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

"Kono called for pressure against DPRK by means of, inter alia, severing diplomatic relations," he said.

"The Abe group is creating an atmosphere of pressure against the DPRK (abroad) while driving the whole Japan into an atmosphere of terror by fabricating a national crisis."

"Their purpose is to make Japan a country that can be able to wage a war by revising the present Constitution through all means," he added.