North Korean officials provided an update Monday on Pyongyang's investigation, launched nearly three months ago, into the fate of at least 12 and possibly hundreds of Japanese nationals believed to have been abducted in the 1970s and 1980s.
They met with Japanese officials in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, after Tokyo complained about the slow pace of the probe by a new North Korean committee, which has a special mandate from the National Defense Commission led by leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea's first report on the findings of its Special Investigation Committee was expected to be released around the end of summer or the beginning of autumn.