SEOUL -- By appointing high-profile officials to an investigative panel, North Korea is trying to show a skeptical Japan that its promise to look into past abductions of Japanese nationals is not an empty one.

The impressive lineup of the special committee, which is scheduled to launch Friday, appears to reflect North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's seriousness about confirming the fate of missing Japanese. In return, Japan will decide on the same day to ease some of its sanctions against North Korea.

The panel will be chaired by So Tae Ha, who serves as councilor in charge of security at the National Defense Commission and vice minister of the Ministry of State Security -- the secret police. He is a powerful figure who goes after spies and anti-establishment groups and is also believed to be in charge of information regarding abductees.

The National Defense Commission, headed by Kim Jong Un, is positioned as the highest organ in North Korea. Other government entities will have no choice but to comply with any demand by the commission, according to an expert on the country's secretive power structure.

One of the vice chairmen of the special committee is Pak Yong Sik, a department director in the Ministry of People's Security, the police organization, which is also believed to be involved in the handling of abductees.

"North Korea explained to us that (the committee) will have absolute power to carry out all its duties unconditionally," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday.

At a high-level meeting Tuesday, North Korea presented Japan with a list of Japanese nationals still living in the country. The investigative panel is expected to draw up its first report this autumn.

Japan intends to relax its sanctions in stages based on progress made in the probe, with National Police Agency and Foreign Ministry officials to be dispatched to North Korea to check whether the results are trustworthy. A ministry official said that sanctions will be put back in place if the investigation is not properly conducted.

Some say Pyongyang is making bold gestures to avoid becoming totally isolated. It may be hoping that South Korea and China will adopt a more conciliatory stance if they see Japanese-North Korean ties improving. In Thursday's edition, the newspaper of the Korean Workers' Party mentioned a proposal for the two Koreas to stop slandering each other.

The ultimate goal for North Korea is to repair relations with the U.S. The North may ask Japan to act as a go-between to facilitate talks over its nuclear and missile programs. It is possible that if discussions do not go its way, North Korea will conduct nuclear tests and press Japan to choose between pressing Pyongyang on the nuclear issue or rescuing abductees.