South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi affirmed the need for close coordination on the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea on Thursday, while largely avoiding DPRK issues in their first summit.

On the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea, the two leaders pledged to continue working with each other as well as the U.S. to dismantle Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction program, the Japanese prime minister’s office said in a press release on Thursday.

The two sides also pledged to maintain cooperation to ensure the “immediate resolution of the abductions