Japan's Fumio Kishida 'conveys intention' to meet Kim Jong Un

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister said Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has requested a summit with her brother, adding any meeting was unlikely without a policy shift by Tokyo.

"Kishida recently conveyed his wish to meet with the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the earliest date possible," Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Relations between the two countries have long been dogged by issues including compensation for Japan's brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945 and more recently by Pyongyang's firing of missiles over Japanese territory.