Fewer Japanese cars, logos seen as ban takes effect in Pyongyang

Few cars cruise the streets of the North Korean capital and, in recent months, fewer and fewer bear the logos of Japanese manufacturers.

Where once the elite drove a top-of-the range Toyota, they are now behind the wheels of shiny new Mercedes-Benzes behind tinted windows. Similarly, the lower ranks used to drive slightly more weary looking Nissans and Hondas, but those have been replaced by Fiats, elderly Volvos and cars made over the border in China.

The loss of Japanese carmakers' virtual monopoly on these dusty roads is a result of worsening tensions between the nations' governments and a symptom of the disdain which Pyongyang retains for its former imperial master.

'The regime clearly feels that it is unpatriotic for its people to be driving Japanese cars and they are advocating this switch to European vehicles,' said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Studies at Temple University in Japan and a specialist on North Korea.

'They may very well be explaining the campaign to their own people as a form of sanctions against Japan,' he added.

Tokyo has imposed sanctions against Pyongyang in the past, notably after North Korea detonated nuclear devices and carried out missile launches.

Other sanctions remain in place over the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Japan remains convinced that more of its kidnapped citizens remain in the North and are being forced to train its spies, a charge that Pyongyang denies.