But the conference risked being overshadowed by reports that host Japan would confront North Korea with fresh allegations that it lied over its kidnappings of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Japan would announce that DNA tests showed Megumi Yokota, snatched on her way home from school at age 13 in 1977, was married to a South Korean kidnap victim and not to a North Korean as Pyongyang contends, said public broadcaster NHK.

Japan, which has met three times with North Korea's envoy since Saturday, believes Yokota and at least seven other kidnap victims are alive. It refuses to establish diplomatic ties until Pyongyang comes clean on the emotionally charged dispute.

Japan has repeatedly brought up the abduction row during the nuclear talks -- which involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States -- to the unease of the other negotiators.

US President George W. Bush in 2002 declared North Korea part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

His administration later confronted the North with allegations it is pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 accord to give up nuclear development in exchange for light water reactors.

The North responded by kicking out weapons inspectors, pulling out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and last year declaring that it had nuclear weapons.