Japan, North Korea agree to continue talks

Japan and North Korea agreed on Monday to continue talks on outstanding bilateral issues, including the North''''s abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago, Japan''''s public broadcaster NHK reported from Beijing. At the end of the two-day bilateral inter-governmental meeting in the Chinese capital, both sides confirmed that they would arrange the next meeting through diplomatic channels at the two countries'''' embassies in Beijing, according to NHK. The chief of the Japanese delegation was Junichi Ihara, director general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the Foreign Ministry, while the North Korean team was headed by Song Il-ho, the country''''s envoy for normalizing ties with Japan. It was the first formal meeting between the two countries since November 2012. Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. The Japanese delegates urged the North Korean officials to take tangible steps toward reinvestigating the fate of abduction victims and missing persons who may have been abducted. The two countries are deadlocked over the number of Japanese nationals North Korean agents abducted in the 1970s and 1980s, and also the fates of some of them. In 2002, the North admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese and returned five victims and their families, claiming that the other eight victims were dead. But Japan has demanded proof of their deaths and believes 17 people were kidnapped. The North agreed in 2008 to reinvestigate the abduction cases, but has failed to fulfill its promise. The Japanese side also lodged a protest against North Korea''''s ballistic missile launches last week, calling the action a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and of the Pyongyang Declaration, which was signed by the two nations'''' leaders in 2002. Japan also expressed regret over a North Korean statement on Sunday that it would not rule out a new form of nuclear test. North Korean officials called on Japan to lift the economic sanctions against their country and to settle issues related to Japan''''s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. They also expressed concern about a court decision to allow the sale of the headquarters of a pro-Pyongyang group in Tokyo by auction, the report said. "We held sincere and candid discussions on issues of mutual interest in our first government-to-government talks in 16 months," Ihara told reporters after the meeting. He offered no details about North Korea''''s stance on the abduction issue, but said that North Korean delegates did not refuse to discuss the matter