Foreign Minister Taro Kono asked U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Friday to lobby President Donald Trump about raising the abduction issue when he meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Speaking to reporters after speaking with Pence at the White House, Kono said a broad understanding had been reached but declined to elaborate.
"We agreed that Japan and the United States will continue to closely cooperate in resolving the abduction issue," he said of North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.