Foreign Minister Taro Kono asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday to raise the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s to be put on the agenda at an upcoming inter-Korea summit.
"We agreed that Japan and South Korea will continue to cooperate on the abduction issue," Kono told reporters after his meeting with Moon in Seoul. But he refrained from revealing the president's response to his request to raise the issue with Kim at the April 27 summit.
Moon appeared to frame the abduction issue as a bilateral matter between Tokyo and Pyongyang.