In a potential breakthrough, Pyongyang has agreed to reinvestigate the fates of Japanese who vanished in North Korea, including those suspected of being abducted by North Korean agents, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday.
Tokyo will lift certain economic sanctions if Pyongyang keeps its promise, Japanese officials said. These include bans on Japan-North Korean trips and money transfers, and port calls by North Korea-registered ships visiting Japan for humanitarian purposes.
"(North Korea) has promised to carry out a comprehensive, full-scale investigation into missing Japanese people, including those who were possibly abducted" by North Korean spies in the 1970s and '80s, Abe told reporters at the prime minister's office in Tokyo.