TOKYO (Kyodo) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday met family members of Japanese nationals abducted in the past by North Korea, renewing his commitment to bring about their prompt return to loved ones.

"I'm with them all the way, and the U.S. is with them all the way," Trump said during his brief meeting with the family members alongside new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The meeting was held at the State Guest House in Tokyo, where the two leaders earlier had their first summit.

Trump, who met the family members in 2017 and 2019 during his visits to Japan in his first term as president, told them, "We always have this in mind."

He exchanged some words with the relatives, including Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi, who was abducted on her way home from school in 1977 at age 13 and has come to be a symbol of the issue.

Seeing photographs of the victims that they were holding, Trump said, "They are so beautiful."

"We will do everything in our power," he said before leaving the room, where U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other members of his delegation, as well as senior Japanese officials, were present.

According to State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott, Rubio thanked the family members for "their continued advocacy on behalf of their loved ones and for sharing their stories."

Following the meeting, Yokota told a press conference, "I believe that something good will happen."

Megumi's younger brother Takuya, who represents the group of abductees' families, said that he could feel in the words of Trump and Rubio "their genuine emotions and attitude toward confronting the issue to achieve a resolution."

He hopes that, through the bond built between Trump and Takaichi, Japan and the United States will "move toward concrete action," he said.

Japan officially lists 17 of its citizens as having been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, but suspects the country's agents were involved in many more disappearances.

Five were repatriated in 2002, and since then, no tangible progress has been made in securing the return of others.

Trump has repeatedly touted his good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, although their denuclearization talks collapsed in 2019, and has voiced his desire to rekindle diplomatic exchanges with North Korea.

Neither Japan nor the United States has diplomatic relations with North Korea.

In addition to the family members, Trump and Rubio met with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, reaffirming U.S. support for Japan in achieving an immediate settlement of the abductions issue, Pigott said.

Kihara said at a press conference that the meeting was "a very meaningful opportunity to reaffirm the United States' full support for the immediate resolution of the abduction issue and the robust collaboration between Japan and the United States."