After more than a year of deadlock, Japan and North Korea on Thursday agreed to resume official government talks over kidnapped Japanese citizens and Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

“Both nations agreed to coordinate (efforts) in a direction to resume intergovernmental talks,” a spokeswoman for the Japanese Foreign Ministry told NK News on Thursday.

“A schedule has yet to be decided for the next talks.”

The agreement was reached as foreign ministry officials from the two nations held their unofficial meeting on March 19-20 in Shenyang, China on the sidelines of Red Cross talks on returning the remains of Japanese