Tokyo, Pyongyang to continue high-level talks

Tokyo and Pyongyang pledged to push their government-to-government talks to a higher level soon, as their representatives concluded their preparatory discussions in Beijing on Friday.

As the first such meeting since 2008, the discussions sends a positive signal about relations between Japan and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, yet the improvement of bilateral ties is still limited, experts said.

Japan and the DPRK will iron out final details to conduct higher-level talks in the Chinese capital at "as early a time as possible", a Japanese official connected to its Foreign Ministry was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.