Pyongyang has promised to reopen its investigation into the missing Japanese its spies abducted, and Tokyo will partially lift economic sanctions in response.
The announcement was made Friday by Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, who said, however, that Pyongyang's new promise is "a small step" and Tokyo will only lift the ban on chartered flights and trips between the two countries, including port calls by ships carrying humanitarian aid from private entities.
The North is also willing to hand over one of the four surviving Japanese leftist radicals who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet to Pyongyang in 1970 and two of the radicals' wives.