Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine met Monday with South Korea Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam amid the diplomatic row over a statue in Busan symbolizing Korean "comfort women" forced to work in wartime Japanese military brothels.

Nagamine told reporters after the meeting that he and Lim discussed the situations in Syria and North Korea, but he did not say whether they talked about the statue, which sparked the diplomatic row that led to his being recalled to Japan in January in protest.

He had been expected to raise Japan's request to have the statue removed and discuss implementation of an agreement signed between the two countries in 2015 to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the comfort women issue.