More than 80 percent of respondents to a Kyodo News telephone poll on Japan's efforts to normalize ties with North Korea want the government to ensure bilateral disputes are resolved before negotiations are concluded.
Of the 1,000 respondents, 81 percent said Japan should tread carefully in the talks, while 16 percent said the two countries should wrap up the 10 years of on-off negotiations as soon as possible.
The poll was taken Tuesday, the final day of the latest round of normalization talks between Japan and North Korea. The two-day talks, held in Beijing, ended without a major breakthrough.
It was the 11th round of talks since the two sides launched negotiations in 1991, and the third this year. Negotiations were suspended between 1992 and this April.
Major unsolved issues include the alleged abduction of Japanese by North Korean agents and North Korea's demand for compensation for Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Japan insists at least 10 Japanese were kidnapped by the North in seven incidents in the 1970s and 1980s. Pyongyang denies the allegations, but has promised to search for them as "missing persons."