Japan, N Korea move to restart formal talks

TOKYO, Mar 20 (AFP): Japan and North Korea are moving to restart formal government-level talks, a foreign ministry official said Thursday, after a shift over the contentious issue of Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese citizens.

The step forward came as diplomats held informal talks on the sidelines of a two-day humanitarian meeting in the Chinese city of Shenyang between Red Cross officials from the two countries, the Japanese official said.

"They have agreed to make arrangements in an effort to reopen government-level consultations," she told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the move "an important step forward".

"We want to reopen the talks at the earliest possible time through swift and substantial coordination," he told a news conference late Thursday.

Talks were suspended in late 2012 when Tokyo reiterated its demand that Pyongyang come clean on the abduction issue, which has long hampered efforts to improve ties in the absence of formal diplomatic relations.

The talks were officially called off in December 2012 when Pyongyang launched a long-range missile, drawing international condemnation. Formal ties with Japan could bring huge economic benefits to the impoverished state.

North Korea outraged Japan when it admitted more than a decade ago that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and customs.

Five of the abductees have been repatriated to Japan along with their North Korean families. But Pyongyang has insisted, without producing solid evidence, that the eight others are dead.