Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa on Monday contradicted Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori by saying the prime minister did not make a secret proposal to Pyongyang to resolve alleged abductions of Japanese.
Nakagawa opened a regular briefing by referring to the proposal that Mori revealed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair while the two met in Seoul on Friday.
Mori later told reporters the same night that in 1997 he secretly proposed to Pyongyang that it could return suspected Japanese abductees by pretending they had been missing in other places. Mori said he had suggested Beijing and Bangkok.