Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Tuesday he hopes to create an environment for direct dialogue between Japan and North Korea this year in an effort to resolve Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese and press the reclusive state to drop its nuclear and missile threats.
"The abductee issue is a problem that is related to our nation's sovereignty and it is important for the two countries to be able to hold direct talks on the abductions, the missile and the nuclear issues," Maehara said during his first news conference of the year.
"Japan-North Korea talks have not been active, (but) it is a major theme for this year not to leave it up to other countries or only taking up the North Korean issue at the six-party talks or (other) multilevel frameworks," he said.