A Japanese fact-finding mission investigating North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday afternoon.
The 11-member government mission, which left Tokyo on Friday, had stayed overnight in Beijing before leaving for the North Korean capital.
The group will examine the accuracy of North Korea's claim that eight of the Japanese it abducted are dead while five are still alive, Foreign Ministry officials said. Akitaka Saiki, deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, is heading the group.