The Foreign Ministry's 2016 Diplomatic Bluebook released Friday calls South Korea the nation's most important neighboring country that shares strategic interests, an upgrade in phrasing from last year clearly based on December's historic agreement on the "comfort women" issue.
The 2015 bluebook only said "Japan and the Republic of Korea are the most important neighboring countries to each other."
The 2015 version said "the two countries face difficult issues," but that passage was removed from this year's version.