Japan to resume talks with n. Korea

Japan and North Korea will hold bilateral talks at the level of the Ministry of foreign affairs bureau chiefs in Mongolia next week, said first Cabinet Minister Osamu Fujimura yesterday.

It is the first official talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang since dialogue was suspended in August 2008.

The Government is eager to the kidnapping of Japanese by North Korean agents on the agenda according to sources.

The talks in Ulan Bator will take place on Thursday and Friday, Fujimura said at a press conference.

In the run-up to the meeting agreed Tokyo and Pyongyang in the preliminary discussions in August section chief-level officials to discuss "a wide range of issues of mutual interest".

The Japanese Government had hoped to resume at a higher level conversations not appearance on September 17, the 10th anniversary of the Pyongyang Declaration, calling for efforts need to be made to the normalisation of the bilateral relations.

During the preparatory talks, the Japanese Government made public what it saw as issues of mutual interest, including the abduction of Japanese by North Korea in the 1970s and ' 80s.

North Korea responded hard on the announcement, called it unrealistic. The State-run Korean Central News Agency in an article issued September 17, said that the issue of the abduction was "fully resolved."

Afterwards, the North even on small issues such as the stonewalled fixing of a date for a higher level talks, said the source.

Shinsuke Sugiyama, Director-General of Asian and oceanic Affairs Bureau Foreign Ministry threatens to represent the Government during the forthcoming discussions with his counterpart Song Il Ho, Envoy should be for negotiations on normalising ties with Tokyo, or Kim Chol Ho, vice-director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry Asian Affairs Department, the sources said.