The United States is seeking replacer of Japan to deliver fuel oil to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), said US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill on Tuesday.

"We've been in contact with other countries" on the delivery of fuel oil, Hill told reporters following a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Akitaka Saiki in Washington, adding that the United States welcome the participation of other countries."

Under a deal reached in February 2007, the DPRK was to receive 1 million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid from the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan, in return for disabling its plutonium-producing facilities.

The six countries have conducted negotiations, well known as the six-party talks, since 2003, in order to solve nuclear issues on the Korean peninsula in a political method.

Accusing the DPRK of abducting Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, the Japanese government has extended its unilateral sanctions against the DPRK and has tried to find other countries to take its share of fuel oil promised to the DPRK.

The DPRK released five of them along with their children, but said the other eight had died over the years. The Japanese government, however, believes some of them may still be alive and that there might still be other abductees in the DPRK.

The United States supports "the Japanese government and the Japanese people for seeing that the (abduction) issue resolved", US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters on Monday.

(Xinhua News Agency October 29, 2008)