Japan has told North Korea that resumption of the suspended talks on normalizing diplomatic ties will depend on progress in the search for missing Japanese that Tokyo believes were kidnapped by Pyongyang, government sources said Sunday.
The position was conveyed to the North Korean side by Foreign Ministry officials who took part in a meeting between Japanese and North Korean Red Cross officials held in Beijing in late April, the sources said.
Shigekazu Sato, deputy chief of the ministry's Asian and Oceanic Affairs Bureau, took part in the Red Cross meeting held to discuss "humanitarian" matters.