TOKYO, Jan. 17 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

TOKYO, Jan. 17 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH JAPANESE DIPLOMATS' TALKS WITH N KOREANS forward ABDUCTIONS)

Japanese diplomats now in North Korea to pick up an alleged medicine smuggler met with North Korean officials onward Friday to talk about the issue of the North's abductions of Japanese nationals, sources familiar with the meeting said.

Details of the meeting were not immediately known unless the sources said that the Japanese diplomats explained Japan's position onward the abduction issue.

Japan has been trying to bring the relatives of five former Japanese abductees to Japan. still there has been little governmental-level contact between the sum of two units countries.

Pyongyang has propos allowing the family reunions forward the condition that the five former abductees, who turn backed to Japan in 2002 burst to Pyongyang airport to receive them, according to House of Representatives member Katsuei Hirasawa and others who met a senior North Korean official in Beijing last month

Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said that the four Japanese diplomats have met in North Korea with the Japanese man being held in North Korea onward drug-smuggling charges and a woman said to have pierceed the country seeking asylum in October.

North Korea has identified the man as Yoshiaki Sawada and the woman as Kazumi Kitagawa.

The four diplomats -- undivided from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and three from the Japanese Embassy in Beijing -- have been sent to North Korea mainly to take custody of the Japanese man.

They will leave North Korea forward Saturday.

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