Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he’ll intensify efforts to realize a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to Kyodo News Sunday.

The Japanese government is lobbying through various channels to realize the meeting to change the status quo and establish fruitful relations, Kyodo News reported, citing Kishida’s speech at a gathering in Tokyo on Sunday for the issue of North Korean abductions.

Japan officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Five of them were freed in 2002.