WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama welcomed Japan's new prime minister to the White House on Friday, aiming to reinforce a core U.S. alliance at a time of high tension stoked by a Japan-China territorial dispute and a North Korean nuclear test.

Shinzo Abe is a nationalist and a keen advocate of stronger relations with Washington that have assumed more importance for Tokyo as it has locked horns in recent months with emerging power China over the control of unoccupied islands in the resource-rich seas between them.

Abe was meeting with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, with a private lunch in the offing.