Five North Korean-born children of Japanese nationals kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents in the 1970s arrived in Tokyo today for a reunion with their parents, who left the reclusive communist state nearly two years ago.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi returned earlier from Pyongyang after winning agreement from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to let all the relatives of former abductees leave the country. Japan, in turn, said it would offer humanitarian aid.
Kim also said he wanted a nuclear arms-free Korean peninsula and reaffirmed a moratorium on ballistic missile launches, Mr Koizumi told a news conference before leaving Pyongyang.
Despite the breakthrough in the impasse over the abductees and their families, there were mixed emotions in Japan.
Some were disappointed that Koizumi did not bring back the two daughters and American husband of abductee Hitomi Soga, Charles Robert Jenkins, who Washington says is an army deserter.
Others in Tokyo were upset that the summit between the two leaders had failed to clarify what happened to other abductees who Pyongyang has said are dead or who are unaccounted for.
Mr Koizumi said he wanted to restart working talks with the aim of resuming negotiations on establishing diplomatic ties between Japan and North Korea, which Japan once ruled as a colony.
"It is in the interests of both countries to change our hostile relation into a friendly one, our confrontational ties into cooperative ties," Koizumi said. "That is why I went to North Korea a second time."
The five abductees were ordinary young adults when they were snatched from their home towns a quarter of a century ago and taken to North Korea to help train spies.