Trump, Japan’s Abe will confer in advance of N. Korea summit

TOKYO — With efforts being made to reinstate the planned summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is taking no chances.

After speaking with Trump by telephone Monday, Abe told reporters in Tokyo that he and the U.S. president had “agreed to meet before the U.S.-North Korea summit.”

Abe has been concerned that Trump might make a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea that protects the United States but does not address Tokyo’s worries about the North’s short-range missiles that could hit Japan.

By offering to meet with the U.S. president before he heads to Singapore, Abe hopes to be one of the last advisers to have his ear before he meets with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Abe told reporters that Trump had briefed him on plans for the summit meeting, although the Japanese leader did not provide details.

According to NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, Abe — who was meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia over the weekend — conveyed both Japan’s and Russia’s support for the summit meeting to go forward.

Less than 24 hours after canceling the event with a letter to North Korea’s leader Thursday, Trump hinted it might proceed as planned. By Sunday, diplomatic and technical experts from the United States and North Korea had met in the North Korean part of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas in an effort to salvage the summit meeting, which was planned for June 12 in Singapore. It is unclear what has happened in the talks at the border.

Delegations from the United States and North Korea arrived in Singapore on Monday evening, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Negotiations over logistics and other issues related to the possible summit meeting are expected to begin Tuesday. The North Korean delegation is led by Kim Chang Son, a top logistics and protocol official, Yonhap said.

Besides worrying about missiles, Abe also has repeatedly asked Trump to raise the issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea four decades ago.

Of the countries seeking to influence negotiations with North Korea, Japan has remained the most hardline, consistently calling for complete and immediate denuclearization as well as the removal of all missiles and biological weapons.

It also has remained highly skeptical of North Korea’s intentions, reminding the United States that the North has signed and reneged on multiple nuclear deals.