Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday stressed his resolve to advance the long-stalled abduction issue a day after Pyongyang announced it would freeze nuclear weapons testing and scrap its test site.

"It is extremely important to make progress on the abduction issue more than anything," Abe said at a meeting in Tokyo with families of the kidnapped victims.

Abe met with Shigeo Iizuka, head of a group representing abductees' families, and Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977 at age 13, among others.