Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye will not meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in September, government sources said.
Tokyo has found Park reluctant to meet due to resurfacing issues stemming from Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before and during World War II, as well as a territorial dispute over islets controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo in the Sea of Japan, the sources said Friday.
In addition, Abe's government does not plan to request a bilateral summit with South Korea at the U.N. General Assembly session to be held in late September in New York, the sources said.