A Japanese delegation is heading to Pyongyang in a bid to bring back the remains of relatives who died in North Korea during World War II.

The 10-day trip by a group called Seishinkai comes on the eve of the first official talks between North Korea and Japan in four years. Those talks are to take place in Beijing on Wednesday.

North Korea does not have diplomatic ties with Japan, which colonised Korea from 1910 until its World War II defeat in 1945. Seishinkai members will visit the graves of Japanese who died in Korea in the closing stages of the war.