Japan, North Korea to resume talks in Beijing

Japan and North Korea will resume talks on normalizing relations in Beijing next month, a news report said Saturday. The two countries will also discuss Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese citizens and the communist regime's nuclear weapons program in the week starting Feb. 5, Kyodo News agency reported, citing unidentified sources.

Foreign Ministry officials could not be reached late Saturday for comment.

North Korea in 2002 acknowledged abducting 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s, and allowed five of them to return to Japan. Pyongyang said the other eight died, but many in Japan suspect some might still be alive, reports the AP. N.U.