PYONGYANG, North Korea — At a landmark summit meeting that featured an astonishing admission by North Korea that its agents helped to kidnap 11 Japanese in the late 1970s, the leaders of Japan and North Korea agreed Tuesday to begin normalizing relations after decades of bitter hostility.
The reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, also asked his guest, Junichiro Koizumi, the first Japanese prime minister to journey to North Korea, to convey to the Bush administration that the "door is open for dialogue" and said he would observe an open-ended moratorium on testing ballistic weapons.
Taken together, the signals from North Korea seemed to convey that the secretive communist nation is reaching out to the outside world, in part because it badly needs money.
Diplomats here noted that Kim had acceded to Japan's principal demand — to resolve the fate of the missing Japanese — and suggested he was perhaps seeking to temper relations with the Bush administration by reconciling with America's most important regional ally.
"All of a sudden, the world looks very hostile to them," said one senior Western diplomat here. "This is an attempt to break out of the encirclement."
Japan and North Korea have had no diplomatic relations since 1948. Now, talks will begin next month, following North Korea's extraordinary admission that its agents played a part in the disappearance of 11 Japanese. In a joint declaration issued Tuesday, Japan also repeated essentially the same apology it made to South Korea for suffering caused during 35 years of colonial rule.
Japan said Wednesday it will push North Korea to allow several people abducted by North Korean spies decades ago to return home and to conduct a thorough investigation into why they were taken.
The breakthrough with Japan comes as Kim recently resumed cooperation with South Korea on a number of bilateral issues including visits between members of families separated since the Korean War and the re-establishment of a second long-closed rail route between North and South.
Tuesday's progress came at the price for Japan of a large but still unspecified quantity of "grants, long-term loans and humanitarian assistance."
Recent Japanese press accounts have said this aid could total between $8 billion and $10 billion. Although not officially confirmed, these figures are based roughly on the formula Japan used in 1965 when it normalized relations with South Korea.
In its apology Tuesday, Japan said that it "humbly recognized the historical fact that it caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of Korea through its past colonial rule and expressed feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology."
The day's agreements reflected a rare moment of clear diplomatic assertiveness by a Japan that traditionally hews closely to its main ally, the United States, in international affairs, especially those involving security questions.
The signing of a joint declaration and the detailed news of the fate of the missing Japanese appeared to vindicate Koizumi's politically risky decision to visit an unpredictable country that President Bush has branded a member of an "axis of evil."
Kim said vaguely that his country would abide by international agreements concerning nuclear weapons. But there was no mention of something sought by the United States and Japan: an agreement for inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to operate freely in North Korea to ensure that the country is not diverting plutonium stocks for nuclear weapons production.
From the outset, Japan had posited the fate of the missing persons as the most important bilateral issue between the two countries, and the ultimate measure of Koizumi's success in making the journey. Weeks of extraordinarily heavy Japanese press coverage of the disappearances had dramatically raised the stakes for him.
North Korea had angrily walked out of talks with Japan in 1998, when the abduction issue was first raised. But in a bit of early morning drama, even before the formal start of the summit meeting, North Korean officials relieved much of that pressure by reportedly acknowledging their agents' responsibility for the abductions.
The diplomatic breakthrough was tempered by the announcement that 6 of the 11 people have died and another one is missing. North Korea also said that yet another missing Japanese person whose abduction had not previously been suspected by Japan had died. The deaths were said to have been from natural disasters or natural causes.
North Korea said those who are still alive would be allowed to go home if they wished.
In the first of two sessions with Koizumi, Kim said of the deaths, "This is truly regretful, and I offer my candid apology." A Japanese official also quoted Kim as adding, "This will never happen again."
Japanese diplomats said that Kim contended that the abductions, some of which occurred in coastal areas of Japan and others in Europe, were the work of overzealous members of the security forces who wanted native Japanese to work as language trainers for North Korean special services, or intelligence agencies.
The disappearances took place against "the backdrop of bad relations," Kim reportedly said, adding that, "After I came to know about this, the persons responsible have been punished."
Kim did not appear in public after the meeting and accounts of his words were provided only by Japanese officials who took part in the talks. State television tonight stuck to a brief explanation of the joint declaration between the two countries concerning normalization.
North Korea's Central News Agency, however, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying: "It is regrettable that these issues surfaced in the past as a product of the abnormal relationship with Japan. We will prevent such things from happening in the future."
For his part, Koizumi opened an early evening news conference which was broadcast live to Japan, with a mournful statement about the deceased abductees. "When I think of the feelings of the families, I have no words to express my feelings," he said. "It is extremely regrettable, to think that these people cannot return to Japan."
Koizumi's government must now walk a fine line in selling its normalization and expected reconstruction aid package to North Korea given the high death toll among the abducted. Senior officials labored Tuesday to convey an image of sensitivity toward the families. The chief Cabinet officer, Koizumi's top aide, personally informed each family of whatever the government had been able to learn about their relative.
"I was looking forward to the good news today," said Shigeru Yokota, 69, whose daughter, Megumi, was 13 when she disappeared on the way home from school in Niigata in 1977. "But the result was a very tragic one: her death. We heard that she was married and had daughter. I cannot believe her death. I want the government to investigate specifically, on how she was brought to North Korea, and how she died."