Top South Korean and Japanese diplomats will likely meet on the sidelines of a gathering of Asian and European foreign ministers later this month to discuss a resolution to a yearlong dispute, Yonhap news agency reported.
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and her Japanese counterpart, Toshimitsu Motegi, are expected to table the contentious wartime labor issue, the root of recent tensions between the two, at a bilateral meeting in Madrid, the report said, without citing the source of the information. The meeting is expected to take place around the Dec. 15-16 ministerial gathering, and before an expected trilateral summit with China later in the month.
A disagreement over compensation for Koreans who worked for Japanese companies during the 1910-1945 colonization by Japan spread to various sectors this year. Tokyo has implemented tighter export control for certain goods destined for South Korea, which threatened to terminate a bilateral military intelligence-sharing pact. Many South Korean consumers have also boycotted Japanese products and canceled trips to Japan.