North Korean and Japanese officials are meeting in Beijing for a second day to address Tokyo's demand to reopen investigations into Japanese abductees.

The issue has been one of the major obstacles standing in the way of normalized diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Earlier media reports forecasted that Japan would press North Korea to disclose the interim results of a probe into the whereabouts of ten Japanese abductees who remain unaccounted for, and whose fates, Tokyo says, have never been satisfactorily explained.

During the second Japan-North Korea summit in May, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il promised Japan's prime minister to conduct a reinvestigation into the ten missing persons.

North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese to help train North Korean spies during the 1970's and '80's. Five were allowed to return to Japan two years ago, and Pyongyang says the other eight have died from illness, suicide or accidents, though it has offered no evidence to support such claims.