Japan decided to partially lift its sanctions against North Korea after the communist nation promised a new probe into its kidnappings of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s, news reports said Friday. Kyodo News agency and national broadcaster NKH quoted Foreign Minister Masahiko as saying Pyongyang also agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese jet that was flown to North Korea. Word of a breakthrough came after the two sides - which do not have formal diplomatic relations - met for two days of bilateral meetings in Beijing.

The report, if verified, appeared to signal progress in Japan's decades-long campaign to resolve North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens for use as spies and language teachers.

In its efforts to persuade North Korea to cooperate, Japan has imposed tight trade sanctions against the impoverished communist nation, banning, for instance, the running of a ferry between the two nations.

The reports did not specify which sanctions would be lifted, or when that might happen.

In the hijacking, nine Japanese leftist radicals commandeered a Japan Airlines flight in 1970 and took the plane to Pyongyang. Four of the kidnappers remain in North Korea, and Tokyo has long sought their return to Japan to face justice.

The kidnappings have long held up progress in normalizing relations between Japan and North Korea or winning Japanese participation in the granting of aid to the impoverished state in return for it giving up its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens, and allowed five to return home, saying that the remaining eight had died.

Japan, however, has demanded conclusive proof of the deaths, and also wants Pyongyang to investigate the fates of other suspected victims.

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