North Korea proposed in late October that visiting Japanese officials meet with their nationals who had stayed on in what is now North Korea after the end of World War II and Japanese women married to pro-Pyongyang Korean residents of Japan who moved to North Korea under a 1959-1984 resettlement project, sources familiar with bilateral relations said Wednesday.
During talks in Pyongyang, the Japanese officials rejected the offer, however, saying they came to North Korea to tell its officials that Tokyo places its highest priority on Pyongyang's investigation into Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the sources.
The North Korean proposal came as Japanese and North Korean officials gathered in the North Korean capital on Oct. 28 and 29 for talks on what Pyongyang has billed as a comprehensive probe into all Japanese residing in the country.