Japanese diplomats and North Korean officials agreed yesterday to meet again after ending two days of talks on the issue of family members of Japanese citizens that Pyongyang kidnapped decades ago to train spies.
Officials have been tight-lipped about the discussions held at a Beijing hotel, describing them only as "in-depth."
Japan has repeatedly said it wants North Korea to resolve the issue of the families of the abductees, abandon its nuclear arms programs and halt the development of ballistic missiles. Talks on establishing diplomatic ties have stalled over these points.
Mitoji Yabunaka, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told reporters in Beijing that the talks had been extensive.
"We'll continue to arrange things and continue to talk -- that's what we agreed on."
Yabunaka was also quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying that the two sides had not merely stuck to long-held positions on the issue, but no further details were given.
Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
The talks were the first discussions between Japan and North Korea in three months and came shortly after Pyongyang agreed to join a first round of six-country working level talks on its nuclear arms programs in Beijing on May 12.
The abductee issue in particular is especially sensitive in Japan, and solving it would be a major political victory for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Tokyo apparently repeated its demands that the family members of five abductees now back in Japan be allowed to return unconditionally.
The five, who were abducted in the 1970s and 1980s to train North Korean spies in the language and culture of Japan, came home in October 2002 after a historic summit between the leaders of the two countries.
But they left eight family members behind in the North.
North Korea has insisted the five were supposed to return to the North, while Japan demands that the abductees' seven children, born and raised in North Korea and now in their teens and 20s, be allowed to join their parents.
Japan also wants Charles Jenkins, the husband of one of the abductees and a US soldier said by Washington to have defected to the North, to be allowed to join his wife in Japan.
Japanese media said yesterday that Koizumi might visit Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, should North Korea promise to let the eight family members visit Japan, and that he might even accompany them back.
Once the eight were in Japan, Japan would resume talks to normalize diplomatic ties.
The Yomiuri reported that Japanese negotiators may have told North Korea that new sanctions will be unavoidable without progress on the issue.
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