This file photo taken on June 14, 2018 shows Kim Yong Guk, right, then head of the Disarmament and Peace Institute, a think tank under the North Korean Foreign Ministry, and Fumio Shimizu, at the time an official of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, sitting side-by-side during a photo session of a forum in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. (Kyodo)

       TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A forum on Northeast Asian security issues will be postponed again due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, ending the possibility of informal contact between Japan and North Korea on the sidelines of the meeting, diplomatic sources said Sunday.

       The annual Ulaanbaatar Dialogue has been one of the rare opportunities for Japanese and North Korean officials to interact, given that the countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.

       The security conference was canceled last year. While the forum may still be held within the year, the coronavirus situation in Mongolia makes it unlikely that the meeting could go ahead, according to the sources.

       Japan and North Korea remains in a stalemate over the issue of Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, with Japan calling for a resolution of the issue while the North maintains the issue has been settled.

       Japan officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korea and suspects Pyongyang's involvement in other disappearances. Five of the 17 were repatriated to Japan in 2002.

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