North Korea says Japanese PM wants to meet Kim Jong Un. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of the North Korean leader, considered this meeting unlikely without a change of policy on Tokyo's side.
Relations between the two countries are tense due to several problems, from the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945 to the launch by Pyongyang of missiles above Japanese territory. Pyongyang admitted in 2002 to the kidnapping of 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.