Japan will take up the issue of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s during six-party talks later this month in Beijing, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.
But if Pyongyang agrees to hold bilateral talks before the six-party talks, Japan might let the abduction issue rest during the six-way talks, the official said on condition of anonymity. Japan hopes to resume bilateral normalization talks with Pyongyang.
North Korea announced earlier in the day that it has agreed with the United States and China to hold the next round of talks on Feb. 25.
He said Japan will try to draw up a document of some kind at the end of the conference so there will be a clear outcome.
Mitoji Yabunaka, chief of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, will head Japan's delegation.
Some government officials say the talks may be fruitless because the nations involved have not set any conditions for negotiations. Both sides could end up simply repeating the same old arguments, they said.
The talks were expected to be held in December but were delayed because attempts by the six parties -- the two Koreas, Japan, the U.S., China and Russia -- to draft a joint document on ways to resolve Pyongyang's nuclear threat before the gathering ended in a failure.
"Washington wanted Pyongyang to agree to a document stipulating North Korea's complete, irreversible and verifiable abandonment of its nuclear (arms) program," said another government source who also asked not to be named. "It may be possible that the U.S. agreed to compromise on that point."