Japan urged South Korea on Thursday to present a solution to a wartime labor row as their senior diplomats discussed frayed bilateral relations in person for the first time since a new government was launched in Japan, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Shigeki Takizaki, the head of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, warned his South Korean counterpart Kim Jung-han during talks in Seoul that a sell-off of a Japanese company's assets seized under a South Korean court ruling on wartime labor compensation must be avoided, as doing so would bring about an extremely serious situation, the ministry said.
The two officials, meeting for the first time since Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga took office in September, agreed to continue dialogue over the matter, it said.