Government leaders lashed out Friday at Taku Yamasaki, a former vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party who is now out of office, and LDP lawmaker Katsuei Hirasawa for visiting China in an apparent bid to negotiate on the sly with North Korea over its abduction of Japanese nationals.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda stressed that talks between the two governments should be the only channel of negotiation on the issue.
Holding unofficial talks of this kind may send "the wrong message" to Pyongyang, Fukuda told a regular news conference Friday morning, when news of the trip broke.