Pyongyang, North Korea ? In an astonishing concession, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted Tuesday that North Korean spies abducted about a dozen Japanese decades ago and said at least four were still alive.

The turnaround after years of angry denials opened the door for the two estranged neighbors to reopen talks to establish diplomatic ties, and could signal a change in North Korea’s often-hostile approach to relations with the outside world.

Families of 11 Japanese citizens who were allegedly abducted by North Korean spies react during a news conference in Tokyo after learning their loved ones' fate in North Korea. In a first-ever summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday in Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il confirmed that North Korean spies kidnapped a dozen or so Japanese citizens decades ago, and said at least four are still alive.

But the news was shattering for those who learned their sons and daughters were lost to them forever.

“Never in my dreams did I imagine this would be the result,” said Kayoko Arimoto, whose daughter Keiko vanished in 1983 at age 23 while studying in Europe and is now dead.

Kim made the revelation during a landmark summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at which he promised North Korea would continue to freeze missile-test firings and asked Tokyo to relay to the United States a willingness for dialogue, including accepting inspections of suspected nuclear weapons programs.

For his part, Koizumi expressed remorse over the suffering his nation caused the Korean people before and during World War II and promised to discuss economic aid in the normalization talks, set to start next month.

Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and forced thousands of Koreans to work in Japanese mines and shipyards and serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. North Korea’s demand for compensation for the atrocities had been another sticking point in talks between the two nations. Japan has ruled out such compensation and offered aid instead.

But the issue of abductions was the one most closely watched by the Japanese public. Japan and North Korea have never had diplomatic relations, and normalization talks that began in 1991 fell apart two years ago, primarily over the kidnappings.

Displaying an openness previously unseen from the isolated communist state, Kim admitted that North Korean agents had kidnapped the Japanese in the late 1970s and early 1980s to train the North’s spies in Japanese language and culture and to allow spies to assume their identities.

Kim said at least four of the 11 kidnapping victims still were alive and his nation was prepared to let them return to Japan. Six of the 11 and two other abducted Japanese were confirmed dead.

“This will never happen again,” Kim was quoted as saying by a Japanese Foreign Ministry official. “It is regrettable and I apologize sincerely.”

In a statement, North Korea promised to help the survivors meet with their families, and take “necessary steps to let them return home or visit their hometowns if they wish.”

Kim blamed misguided special agents for the abductions.

Japan has pressed for an investigation of the victims’ deaths, which North Korean officials said were caused by illness and other natural disasters.

But many relatives questioned how their loved ones could have died so young. Half the victims would now be in their 40s or 50s.

“I was really looking forward to some good news,” said Shigeru Yokota, whose 13-year-old daughter Megumi disappeared in 1977 as she was walking home from school.

“But it was that she was dead,” he told reporters in Tokyo, choking back tears. “I can’t believe that she’s dead.”

Megumi had been believed alive because former agents had reported seeing her in North Korea.

The Foreign Ministry official said North Korea told them Megumi had a daughter who was living in Pyongyang.