Senior Foreign Ministry officials from Japan and North Korea held secret discussions in Beijing in January on restarting stalled negotiations on normalizing bilateral diplomatic ties, informed sources said Tuesday.
No agreement was reached on the timing of the new round in the meeting between North Korean officials and Kazuyoshi Umemoto, director of the Foreign Ministry's Northeast Asia Division, the sources said.
The same problems that have plagued previous negotiations once more blocked progress -- the return of at least 10 Japanese allegedly abducted by North Korean agents in seven incidents in the 1970s and 1980s and compensation for Japan's colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.