TOKYO (AP) — Japan says it will hold government-level talks with North Korea for the first time in four years.
Chief government spokesman Osamu Fujimura announced Tuesday that the talks will be held in Beijing on Aug. 29 and cover "various pending issues" between the two countries.
The talks were scheduled after the two nations' Red Cross societies met in Beijing to discuss the repatriation of the remains of Japanese soldiers.
Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula before and during World War II.
North Korea and Japan do not have diplomatic relations. They have not held government-level talks since August 2008 because of animosity over their colonial past and disputes over North Korea's nuclear program and its kidnapping of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
