Japan's PM requests meeting with Kim Jong Un to fix 'various bilateral problems' with North Korea

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to meet with North Korea's Kim Jong Un to have the nation recognize the return of Japanese people abducted during the 1970s and 80s.

Speaking at a news conference after the government budget cleared parliament, Kishida stressed he was directly involved in high-level negotiations to fix various bilateral problems, amid growing worries about neighboring North Korea’s missiles and nuclear weapons programs.

In 2002, Kim Jong Il, the late father of Kim Jong Un, told then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 80s, and allowed five of them to return to Japan.