TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday he may consider meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if it would help resolve the long-pending issue of Pyongyang's kidnapping of Japanese citizens.

"If a summit meeting is deemed as an important means in considering ways to resolve the abduction issue, we must take it into consideration as a matter of course in negotiating with them," Mr Abe told a parliamentary committee.