WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House for consultations before the U.S. leader meets with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un next week in Singapore.
Abe requested Thursday’s meeting with Trump to coordinate strategy for the next week’s talks and to elevate his country’s concerns about the summit.
Abe is pushing Trump to raise the issue of Japanese abductees held in North Korea, and he is seeking to ensure that Trump’s efforts to negotiate an agreement with Kim don’t harm Japan’s interests.
U.S. allies in the region have expressed concern that Trump’s push to denuclearize the Korean peninsula could ignore the North’s sophisticated ballistic missile and chemical weapons programs.
