Japan says expects progress in North Korea talks

SYDNEY, Sep 4 (Reuters) Japan expects talks this week with North Korea on establishing diplomatic ties to produce a positive outcome, a senior Japanese foreign ministry official said today.

The Asian neighbours begin two days of talks tomorrow in Ulan Bator as part of a six-country deal to scrap Pyongyang's nuclear arms programmes in exchange for aid and diplomatic recognition.

They held similar talks in March in Hanoi, which stalled mainly over the simmering feud over Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.

But Pyongyang is showing a more positive attitude this time around, said Mitsuo Sabaka, a spokesman for Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.

''There are more indications of some positiveness for coming to tomorrow's meeting in Mongolia for discussions with Japan,'' he told reporters on the sidelines of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.

''We are not optimistic so much, but we are not pessimistic either. But we are expecting really some positive outcome,'' he said.

Japan established diplomatic relations with capitalist South Korea in 1965, but it has yet to do so with the communist North.

The issue of the abductees, spirited away from their homeland in the 1970s and 1980s to help train North Korean spies in Japanese language and culture, is an emotive one in Japan and a major stumbling block towards forging diplomatic ties.

Japan says it will not give full-scale economic assistance to North Korea or establish diplomatic ties unless the abduction issue is resolved.

A failure to improve ties could hinder a six-party agreement, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, because Tokyo is reluctant to give large-scale aid to Pyongyang in return for abandoning its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea insists the case on abductions is closed and demands that Japan make compensation for its often-brutal colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

REUTERS PD BST1724