Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed Saturday to urge North Korea to take concrete steps toward denuclearization as they coordinated policies ahead of Pompeo's visit to Pyongyang.

Pompeo, who is expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday, promised Abe too that he will raise the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s.

Abe and Pompeo also reaffirmed that U.N. sanctions should be implemented until North Korea denuclearizes, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

"We would like to coordinate our policies toward North Korea's abduction, nuclear and missile issues," Abe said at the outset of the meeting with Pompeo at the prime minister's office.

As Tokyo and Washington have been in even closer contact with each other than before the historic U.S.-North Korea summit in June, Pompeo said, "We'll have a full coordinated, unified view of how to proceed, which will be what is needed if we're going to be successful in denuclearizing North Korea."

Abe has placed priority on resolving the abduction issue and he has expressed his willingness to engage in direct talks with Kim.

Pompeo also met with Foreign Minister Taro Kono later in the day.

"It's our shared goal between Japan and the United States to resolve the abduction issue," Kono told reporters after the meeting.

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In Pyongyang on Sunday, Pompeo will seek to work out the details of a second U.S.-North Korea summit that President Donald Trump has said he would hold "in the not too distant future."

But speaking on his plane en route to Tokyo, Pompeo said, "I doubt we will get it nailed," according to U.S. media reports. He said he hopes to "begin to develop options for both location and timing for when Chairman Kim will meet with the president again."

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun is accompanying Pompeo. It will be Biegun's first visit to North Korea since assuming the post in August, while Pompeo is making his fourth trip there.

Following his trip to Pyongyang, Pompeo will visit South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae In and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung Wha, and stop over in China on Monday, the U.S. State Department said.

Speculation has emerged recently that Washington will agree with Pyongyang on a conditional end-of-war declaration in return for concrete steps toward the North's denuclearization, which is expected to be a major issue at the envisioned U.S.-North Korea summit.

The 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, which means U.S.-led U.N. forces, including South Korea, are technically still at war with North Korea.

Beijing and Seoul have expressed expectations for the declaration, while Tokyo has remained cautious.

Pompeo canceled his planned trip to the North Korean capital in late August due to a lack of credible action by Pyongyang, even though Kim pledged to work toward "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit in June in Singapore.

Kim expressed his readiness, in a meeting with Moon in Pyongyang last month, to permanently dismantle the North's main nuclear complex if the United States takes "corresponding measures."

In New York in late September, Pompeo and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho agreed that the secretary of state would visit Pyongyang to prepare for the second Trump-Kim summit.

(Contribution by Noriyuki Suzuki)