AKIPRESS.COM - A top Japanese intelligence official close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a secret meeting with North Korean counterparts in early October in Mongolia, sources familiar with bilateral ties have said, Kyodo  reports.

The meeting in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar could be consistent with Abe’s stated desire to arrange a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after he received assurances about progress on the long-standing issue of abductions of Japanese nationals by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among major countries dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat, Japan is the only one to have been kept at arm’s length since Kim began a string of diplomatic engagements this year. In addition to holding talks with Chinese, South Korean and U.S. leaders, Kim plans to hold a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin by the end of the year.

During a visit to Mongolia from around Oct. 6 to 8, Shigeru Kitamura, who heads the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, met with North Korean officials including a senior figure from the United Front Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, sources said Thursday.

The department is an intelligence organ mainly focused on South Korean affairs.

Confirming that the meeting took place, a senior Japanese government official said, “I heard they discussed how the abduction issue should be solved between Japan and North Korea.”

It is believed that the contact between intelligence authorities representing Tokyo and Pyongyang is the first of its type in about three months.

Kitamura previously met with Kim Song Hye, head of the United Front Department’s tactical office, in Vietnam in mid-July.

The latest revelation sheds light on Abe’s increased reliance on behind-the-scenes communications with North Korea, using intelligence authorities rather than the Foreign Ministry.

His approach seems to echo that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who mainly employed the Central Intelligence Agency to set the stage for his first summit with the North Korean leader in Singapore in June.

Japan has sounded out North Korea about Tokyo’s plan to open a liaison office in Pyongyang in the hope of resolving the abduction issue, sources said earlier this month.

The proposed opening of a liaison office is based on a bilateral agreement reached in 2014 in Stockholm that included provisions for Japanese officials to stay in North Korea to check the progress of Pyongyang’s probe into the abduction issue.

Japan officially lists 17 nationals as having been abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s but alleges their involvement in many more disappearances. Five of the 17 were repatriated in 2002.