The foreign ministers of Japan and China were to meet Sunday to discuss joint development of gas fields in the East China Sea and North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals, an official said.

The talks between Japan's Masahiko Komura and China's Yang Jiechi come amid rapidly warming relations between the two Asian economic giants after decades of mistrust due in part to the legacy of Japanese imperialism.

In June, the two sides agreed to joint develop the gas fields in an area near a group of islands that remain the focus of a bitter dispute.

On North Korea, the pair will discuss Pyongyang's pledge to reinvestigate the abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s as part of its spy programme, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama told reporters.

"We would appreciate any efforts on the part of the Chinese government to put pressure on the DPRK (North Korea) to come forward on this issue," he said.

Japan, which does not have diplomatic relations with North Korea, said it had won assurances at a meeting last week in China that it could inspect sites and hold interviews inside the communist North on the abductions cases.

North Korea admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese. It returned five victims and their families, while saying the eight others were dead. Tokyo insists that some of the kidnap victims could still be alive.

Japan has made it clear to China and its partners in the six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programmes that it would withhold energy aid for Pyongyang until the kidnapping issue was addressed, Kodama said.

Komura is also to attend a Japan Olympic Committee reception in Beijing, his ministry said.