TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese officials were due in North Korea for a third round of talks on the fate of Japanese abducted during the Cold War, an issue Tokyo says must be resolved before it considers ties with the Stalinist state.
The 19-member Japanese delegation, headed by Mitoji Yabunaka, chief of Asian and Oceanian affairs at the foreign ministry, is expected to push for details on those abducted as Pyongyang has failed to give concrete information on what happened to them.
Before departing late Monday to Beijing en route to Pyongyang, Yabunaka promised the Japanese team will make an "all-out effort" during the talks.
"Unless the abduction issue is resolved, we will not start discussions over normalising bilateral relations," Yabunaka said.
North Korea and Japan made little progress in two previous meetings on the kidnap issue held in Beijing.
A foreign ministry spokesman said the four-day talks in Pyongyang "are meant to be a follow-up session on issues raised at the Japan-North Korea summit on May 22."
At the May meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il agreed to carry out "a full-scale reinvestigation" of 10 abducted Japanese who Pyongyang claimed were dead or never entered North Korea.
North Korea kidnapped Japanese during the Cold War to use for spy training and has allowed five survivors to return home. Pyongyang has maintained that others who were captured were dead.
The Japanese delegation is expected to seek meetings with the husband of Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1977 at age 13 and is said to have died there, and with the doctor who wrote her medical records, Kyodo News agency said.
The delegates will also try to find out detailed information about North Korea's special agency believed to have carried out the abductions, Kyodo said.
11/09/2004 - 04:57 GMT - AFP