Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol spoke briefly Tuesday in Madrid, both governments said, in their first face-to-face encounter amid chilly ties over wartime issues.
The conversation took place on the fringes of a summit of the NATO summit that the two leaders are attending, keeping hopes alive for a thaw in bilateral relations under Yoon, who became president in May with a pledge to take a "future-oriented" approach.
Kishida told Yoon during a dinner hosted by King Felipe VI of Spain that he hopes the South Korean president will work to restore the countries' "extremely severe" relations to "a healthy state," the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.