U.S. President Barack Obama met three relatives of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and ’80s on Thursday.

The meeting marked the first time Obama had met abductee relatives, signaling that the U.S. and Japan wished to strengthen joint efforts to solve the issue of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.

Obama met Sakie and Shigeru Yokota, the parents of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 at the age of 13, and Shigeo Iizuka, whose younger sister Yaeko Taguchi was abducted in 1978 at the age of 22. Iizuka also heads a group of