Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in held talks in China on Tuesday, ending a 15-month hiatus in formal dialogue and marking a fresh sign of a nascent thaw in relations strained over wartime labor and trade issues.
During a roughly 45-minute meeting in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, the leaders agreed to maintain dialogue but did not make substantive progress toward resolving the wartime forced labor compensation issue, which has sent bilateral ties to their lowest point in years.
Abe urged Moon to swiftly address the issue, which stems from South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese firms to pay compensation for forced wartime labor during the 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, a senior Japanese government official said. Moon said he sees the need to resolve the issue at an early date, according to the official.