While Tokyo and Pyongyang are set to resume government-level talks for the first time in four years, uncertainty remains over a resolution to North Korea's past abductions of Japanese nationals.
The bilateral talks, scheduled to kick off Aug. 29 in Beijing, will focus primarily on retrieving and repatriating the remains of Japanese who died on the Korean Peninsula toward the end of the war, and allowing visits by their relatives to burial sites in the North.
Tokyo is also hoping to make progress on the long-stalled abductee issue to buoy anemic support ratings for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's administration.