Japan and North Korea remained at odds over the abductions issue when a group of Japanese diplomats visited Pyongyang last week for the first official contact between the two countries in several months, the Foreign Ministry says.

While the Japanese delegates urged Pyongyang to resume government-to-government talks to resolve the abductions issue, their North Korean counterparts maintained that Tokyo "keep its promise" and send back the five former abductees repatriated to Japan in 2002, a ministry official told reporters late Saturday evening.

On the request for governmental talks, the North Korean officials said only that they will "properly report" the request to their relevant authorities, according to the ministry official, who asked not to be named.

Two North Korean officials in charge of Japan affairs met with four Japanese diplomats who were in Pyongyang on a five-day visit through Saturday.

The Japanese diplomats' primary objective was to meet with a Japanese man in North Korean custody on an accusation of drug smuggling, but they also sought to use the opportunity to discuss the abductions of Japanese nationals by Pyongyang agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

It was the first time Japan and North Korea have had official contact since September, when diplomats from North Korea held talks with officials from Japan, the United States, South Korea and China in New York. It was also the first trip to Pyongyang by a Japanese official since October 2002.

Although ministry officials said it was "meaningful" that the two sides met, they added that it was still too early to judge North Korea's intentions, saying the government will "closely watch" future moves.

When the Japanese diplomats proposed discussing the abduction issue, according to the Foreign Ministry official, the North Koreans said: "That is out of the range of the purpose of your visit to North Korea. Japan should keep its promise and send back to Pyongyang the five people who temporarily returned to Japan."

Five of more than a dozen Japanese kidnapped to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s were sent back to Japan in October 2002 in what was originally supposed to be a brief homecoming, but the government later decided to have them stay in Japan permanently.

The Japanese diplomats told the North Korean officials that Japan's position remains unchanged that it will normalize ties with Pyongyang only after pending issues, including the abductions issue, are resolved, according to the Foreign Ministry official.

They also urged Pyongyang to respond to the various inquiries on the abduction issue made during normalization talks in October 2002, the official said.

During that meeting, Japan urged North Korea to provide more detailed -- and more convincing -- accounts of the fate of eight abductees who Pyongyang insists have died, and to find out what happened to two others who Japan recognizes as having been kidnapped to North Korea.

Foreign Ministry officials were apparently disappointed by the lack of change in the North's position during last week's talks.

Expectations rose within the government after Pyongyang allowed the Japanese diplomats to visit the country. The trip came against the background of a series of recent overtures from North Korea -- conveyed through unofficial channels -- that it is ready to send the families of the five returnees to Japan under certain conditions.

"We were not able to get a positive response from the North on the abduction issue during the visit," the Foreign Ministry official said. "The government hopes that North Korea will accept our request to hold bilateral talks."