Door open for Abe-Kim summit:

Asia

Lee

Japan’s top government spokesman left the door open on Wednesday to a possible summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un to discuss the matter of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang’s agents decades ago.

Abe, who has made the abductees issue a keystone of his political career, will meet US President Donald Trump next month in Washington ahead of a proposed summit between the US leader and Pyongyang’s Kim, which would follow a planned April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Worries have surfaced in Tokyo that Japan’s interests, including the abductees’ fate, may be sidelined by recent moves to resolve the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

“It is important to harmonise policies closely among Japan, the United States and South Korea ahead of the North-South summit and the US-North Korea summit,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference. (RTRS)