Senior diplomats from North Korea and Japan were set to resume a fresh round of talks on Monday as Pyongyang snubs Tokyo's demand to quickly produce a preliminary report on the North's probe into the fate of more than a dozen Japanese nationals it has admitted to kidnapping decades ago.

North Korea agreed in May to re-investigate the issue of Japanese nationals kidnapped by the North's agents in the 1970s and 1980s. In return, Japan lifted some of its unilateral sanctions imposed on the North over its missile and nuclear programs.

The one-day talks in Shenyang, located in northeastern China, come after North Korea failed to offer the preliminary results of its probe by late this month, a timeline anticipated by the Japanese government.

The North's chief delegate, Song Il-ho, has confirmed that Pyongyang won't submit the preliminary report to Tokyo during the Monday talks.

The Monday meeting "is not the place where we notify (Japan) of our initial results of investigation, but a place where both sides exchange updates on the situation since the agreement," Song, the North Korean ambassador for normalization talks with Japan, told reporters upon his arrival on Saturday at an airport in Shenyang.

The May agreement between North Korea and Japan was seen as a major breakthrough for relations between the two nations, which have never established diplomatic ties. The abduction issue has long been a key stumbling block to normalizing their relations.

South Korea and the United States reacted cautiously to the deal between North Korea and Japan, with some critics saying it could weaken trilateral cooperation among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo against Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

In 2002, North Korea admitted to abducting 13 Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s. The North then let five of them return home but said eight others had died, though Japanese officials believe that some of them are still alive. (Yonhap)