Japan and North Korea have agreed in principle to launch negotiations in early April on normalizing diplomatic relations, resuming talks that collapsed in 1992, Japanese government sources said Friday.
The sources also said the agreement has prompted Tokyo to decide to offer 100,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the U.N. World Food Program, restoring Japan's food aid to the North for the first time in three years.
The accord was made at informal talks the two nations have been holding since December, when they held preparatory talks in Beijing on the normalization of relations.