North Korea and Japan held informal meetings in Shanghai about ongoing investigations into the 1977-83 abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, Japanese media reports said in January.

While unnamed sources told media the meetings were attended by Junichi Ihara, Japan’s director general of the foreign ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and that updates on the progress of the investigation were issued by the North Korean side, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) neither confirmed or denied the reports when contacted by NK News.

Now, with reporting on the abduction issue having recently lost much of the momentum from