North Korea, Japan agree to restart government talks

North Korea and Japan agreed Thursday to resume formal government talks on the North's nuclear program and abductions of Japanese citizens, after more than a year of hiatus, a Japanese diplomat said. The agreement was reached at an informal meeting between Ryu Song-il, head of Japanese affairs division at North Korea's foreign ministry, and Keiichi Ono, director of the Northeast Asia Division at Japan's foreign ministry, Ono told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting here. "Both sides agreed on the resumption of formal government-to-government talks," Ono said, adding a date for the new talks has not been set. North Korea and Japan will arrange a date and other perimeters for the new talks through their embassies in Beijing, Ono said. The formal government negotiations between North Korea and Japan were last held in November 2012 and then suspended after the North's launch of a long-range rocket and its third nuclear test. Along with North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, Pyongyang and Tokyo have long been at odds over the fate of Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and '80s. This week's informal meeting betweenRyu and Ono was held on the sidelines of negotiations between Red Cross officials of the two nations, with a chief Japanese delegate reporting some progress in earlier talks on repatriation of the remains of Japanese nationals who died in the North during World War II. The two-day Red Cross talks were led by Ri Ho-rim, secretary general of the North's Red Cross Society, and Osamu Tasaka, director general of the International Department at the Japanese Red Cross. After seven hours of talks on Wednesday night, Tasaka told reporters, "I think there is progress if you compare with the things that were being discussed during the previous round of talks."    Describing the mood at the talks as "very good," Tasaka said he "felt sincerity" from the North Korean side. At the end of the two-day talks on Thursday, the North's chief delegate Ri said the two sides held "very constructive and useful" discussions. "Both sides held in-depth talks in a serious and candid manner," Ri said, adding the two sides agreed to continue talks on the issue of repatriating Japanese remains in the future.