"I hope there will be an agreement on abolishing North Korea's nuclear program. It's important to stop its claimed nuclear drive," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman.

He was speaking after host Beijing said talks between China, the United States, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan would resume on Tuesday. The dialogue was adjourned on August 7 after Washington rejected Pyongyang's demand to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Japan has irked other nations in the negotiations by using the occasion to press North Korea on its kidnappings, an emotional issue in Japan which holds a general election on Sunday.

"We will keep pressing. We would like to make progress as much as we can by holding talks between Japan and North Korea," Hosoda told reporters.

Japan held a bilateral meeting with North Korea just before the Beijing talks adjourned to address the kidnappings.

North Korea in 2002 admitted having kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.

It repatriated five victims along with their families, saying the eight others were dead. But Japan has insisted the eight are still alive and kept under wraps because they know too many secrets.

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