Talks between Japan and North Korea "will become necessary if we are to hold in-depth discussions on the abduction issue," the government's top spokesman said at a news conference. "I think such a thing will happen."

If the bilateral talks are realized, Japan will work to resolve various related issues, Fukuda said. These include the North sending family members of five Japanese abducted in 1978 and repatriated last year to Japan, he said.

Fukuda said the six nations -- China, Japan, South and North Korea, Russia and the United States -- are still making arrangements over where and when to hold the talks.

The six reportedly plan to meet in Beijing in late August or early September.

In Washington overnight, visiting Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said senior U.S. officials with whom he spoke promised the U.S. will back Japan in urging North Korea to resolve the abduction issue during the six-nation meeting.

Tokyo has repeatedly urged Pyongyang to allow the family members of the five repatriated abductees to come to Japan before resuming talks on normalizing bilateral ties, and has also demanded the North disclose information about the other abductees, including those it says have died.

The five abductees now in Japan are Hitomi Soga and two couples -- Kaoru Hasuike and his wife Yukiko and Yasushi Chimura and his wife Fukie.

The Hasuikes have two children in North Korea and the Chimuras have three there. Soga's American husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, and their two children also remain in the North.

The U.S. military has listed Jenkins as a deserter.