NKorea, Japan to meet this week: report

TOKYO (AFP) - North Korea and Japan are preparing to hold talks later this week on normalizing bilateral ties, which were set up under a six-party deal on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs, a report said Sunday.

Officials from Tokyo and Pyongyang are preparing to meet Thursday and Friday in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources from both sides.

Song Il-Ho, the North Korean envoy to the talks, arrived Saturday in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang to prepare for the two-day meeting, the Mainichi and the regional Tokyo Shimbun reported.

Japan and North Korea have not held formal bilateral talks since March, when a meeting in Hanoi produced few results amid a dispute over Pyongyang's past kidnappings of Japanese nationals.