Japan and North Korea last week ended two days of talks in Hanoi without progress toward normalizing diplomatic relations between them. They could not set a date for the next round and merely agreed to continue consultations. Although little optimism is warranted, Japan needs to pursue the talks with perseverance.

The Hanoi meeting marked the first bilateral negotiations on normalization since the February 2006 meeting in Beijing. The Japan-North Korea talks were one of five working groups established under the six-party talks' agreement reached in February. In the meeting, the positions of the two countries remained far apart. Japan insists that there can be no normalization without resolving the issue of the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents in the 1970s and '80s. Japan repeated its call for repatriation of all abductees, disclosure of the details of their abductions and the extradition to Japan of people involved in carrying out the abductions.

North Korea reiterated that the abduction issue has already been settled. Yet it said it might look into the cases of missing Japanese if Japan were to begin steps to atone for its 1905-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, lift economic sanctions against North Korea and stop cracking down on the Pyongyang-affiliated organization of Korean residents in Japan.