The planned summit next month between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye is 'a springboard' toward restoring normal bilateral ties but will not be enough to resolve deep-rooted issues between the nations, an expert has said.
Park said in Washington earlier this month that she could meet with Abe on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with China, which Seoul plans to host early November.
Abe and Park have not held a formal one-on-one meeting since taking office in December 2012 and February 2013, respectively.
"First and foremost, I highly regard (the two countries' efforts to overcome differences and) hold the summit," Tsuda College associate professor Park Jung-jin said at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on Thursday. "It would be a springboard to get the bilateral ties back to normal."
The trilateral summit, which involves Abe, Park and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, will be the first between the three nations since May 2012.
Bilateral ties between Tokyo and Seoul have soured in recent years over territorial and historical disputes, including the matter of "comfort women" who were forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels.
Associate professor Park said many people in South Korea were concerned about the situation.
A joint opinion poll conducted in April and May by Japan's Genron NPO and South Korea's East Asia Institute found 67.2 percent of some 1,000 South Koreans surveyed saw deteriorating national sentiment between the two countries as a problem.
However, the associate professor warned it was too much to anticipate significant progress in mending ties between the two countries through the meeting alone, noting it would be only the first summit between the two leaders.