President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a telephone conversation for 45 minutes from 4:30 this afternoon. They discussed recent developments on the Korean Peninsula. 

Prime Minister Abe noted the change in North Korea’s attitude toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. He gave high marks to President Moon’s leadership in eliciting such a change. President Moon said the current positive change was ascribable to Prime Minister Abe’s proactive interest and efforts. 

Mentioning sportsmanship shown by speed skaters Lee Sang-hwa and Nao Kodaira during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the two leaders wished that friendship between the peoples of their two countries would develop even more.

President Moon and Prime Minister Abe saw eye to eye on the need for Korea, the United States and Japan to maintain close policy coordination and enhance cooperation to ensure that what the North has said concerning denuclearization translates into concrete acts. 

President Moon said that peace on the Korean Peninsula would not be possible with an inter-Korean summit alone, adding that if the North improved its ties with the United States and Japan as well, inter-Korean relations would also make progress. 

In response, Prime Minister Abe mentioned the situation surrounding the Pyongyang Declaration announced by former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he visited North Korea for a summit in September 2002, expressing his expectation for a possible dialogue between Japan and the North on the occasions of the upcoming inter-Korean summit and a summit between the United States and North Korea. 

As there is progress in inter-Korean relations, the two leaders agreed to cooperate on solving pending issues between Japan and North Korea, including the matters related to Japanese abductees.  

The two leaders were on the same page about holding a trilateral summit among Korea, China and Japan at the earliest possible date. Noting that a frequent mutual visit by the leaders of the two countries would be of great help in solving issues between Korea and Japan, they agreed to have working-level officials adjust the date of a possible visit so that President Moon would be able to visit Japan at the earliest date possible.