Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said Wednesday that he has told his U.S. counterpart, Mark Esper, that Tokyo is seeking to come up with an alternative to the scrapped deployment of the U.S.-developed Aegis Ashore missile interception system by the end of the year.

Kishi spoke over the phone with Esper, with the two agreeing to work together closely to push ahead with substitute for the scrapped deployment, the Defense Ministry said. Japan is examining three sea-based plans in place of the land-based system, which was aimed at protecting the country from the threat posed by North Korean missiles.

In June, the government under then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kishi's elder brother, decided to abort the plan to deploy the Aegis Ashore system in Akita Prefecture and Yamaguchi Prefecture due to technical problems and ballooning costs.