BEIJING, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - North Korean and Japanese officials met in northeast China on Sunday for talks seen as aimed at normalising diplomatic ties, a diplomat and reports said.

Japan's Kyodo News quoted an unnamed diplomat as saying talks had begun. An Asian diplomat in Beijing earlier confirmed talks between the two sides were scheduled to take place in Shenyang and likely to last just one day.

Song Il-Ho, North Korea's chief envoy in bilateral talks with Japan, and Shigeo Yamada, head of the Northeast Asia section of Japan's foreign ministry, arrived in Shenyang on Saturday, the Japanese business daily Nikkei reported, without citing sources.

The talks follow reports suggesting an apparent shift away from confrontation by both Tokyo and Pyongyang.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who took over last month, is seen as more moderate than his hardline predecessor Shinzo Abe, who campaigned throughout his career for a tough line against the communist nation.

"I am here to meet our consul general in Shenyang," Song told reporters after arriving from Pyongyang, as quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The North Korean diplomat, accompanied by several officials, refused to elaborate on his visit, Yonhap reported.

Japan and North Korea have held normalisation talks this year under the framework of six-party talks aimed at denuclearising North Korea.

No breakthrough in an emotional row over kidnappings was made at the last round of talks in Mongolia in September. Both sides, however, agreed to keep talking.

Japan refuses to improve ties with North Korea unless the isolated nation releases all Japanese citizens believed to have been kidnapped decades ago.

North Korea has acknowledged kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.

It returned five victims and their families and says the row is resolved. Japan insists that North Korea is hiding survivors and abducted more people it has not acknowledged.

Japan has called on North Korea to take concrete steps to settle the dispute, on which former prime minister Abe has long campaigned.

Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Sunday reiterated Tokyo's demand, saying "It's North Korea's responsibility to show the truth clearly."

"We can never believe that all the kidnapped people still remaining in North Korea are dead. Some must be alive," he told reporters.

Japan and North Korea have never established diplomatic ties. North Korea has insisted that Japan come up with compensation for its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.

On Friday, Japan's conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper, quoting unnamed foreign ministry sources, said Fukuda's government was considering sending aid in exchange for promises from Pyongyang to further research the fate of abductees.

Meanwhile a senior North Korean official said Thursday that Pyongyang believed Fukuda represented a positive change from Abe and called for talks.