Expectations rose Wednesday for a breakthrough on a long-standing dispute over wartime labor compensation between Japan and South Korea as Taro Aso, former prime minister and a veteran lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party met with President Yoon Suk-yeol for talks in Seoul.

Aso, a close ally of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, had been expected to discuss possible plans for a foundation funded by contributions from South Korean companies to pay compensation for wartime labor to plaintiffs on behalf of Japanese corporate defendants.

After their meeting, South Korea's presidential office said that Yoon had asked Aso to help promote the development of bilateral relations by working to increase people-to-people exchanges.

Aso pledged to continue to work for the swift restoration and development of relations between the two countries, while noting the need for continued dialogue and cooperation, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung.

Although it appeared that Wednesday's meeting itself did not immediately produce any breakthrough on their soured relations, one Japanese expert on South Korea said an improvement in ties could be both a blessing and a curse.

For Yoon, improved ties with Japan wouldn’t exactly boost his plummeting support rate as he faces a phalanx of domestic problems, said Kan Kimura, a professor of Korean studies at Kobe University.

“With no prospects for scoring points on domestic issues, diplomacy is a place where (Yoon) can show the public that he has delivered,” he said, adding “It won’t hurt.”

If Aso, who was on a two-day visit to the South, were to apologize over Japan’s wartime labor, Yoon could also tout it as a breakthrough accomplishment.

According to Kimura, the prime minister wants to resolve the impasse with South Korea in order to pursue his own diplomatic objectives with North Korea and China: A stronger trilateral cooperation between Japan, South Korea and the United States; and an expansion of “the Quad” grouping of Japan, Australia, U.S. and India that would also include South Korea.

“But if South Korea makes a compromise that they can’t keep in the end, Japan will lose trust in South Korea once and for all,” said Kimura.

Media reports had said that Aso was visiting South Korea as the prime minister’s envoy. But Japan’s top government spokesman denied the report, adding that he was not carrying a letter from Kishida.

“At this point, nothing has been decided on holding talks between the leaders of Japan and South Korea,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.

The meeting came as Yoon's government grappled with the response to a crowd crush incident over the weekend in Seoul that left more than 150 dead.

Throwing yet another wrench into the works was nuclear-armed North Korea, which fired off at least 23 missiles Wednesday — including one that landed near South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the 1953 division of the peninsula, according to Seoul. South Korea announced later in the day that its fighter jets had responded by firing three air-to-surface missiles into waters north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime boundary between the two countries.

Yoon lambasted the North’s launches as “effectively a violation of our territory,” and called on the military to remain on guard for additional “high-intensity provocations” — a sign that Pyongyang could continue to ramp up its moves, including by conducting a possible seventh nuclear test.

North Korea’s spate of missile launches this year has unnerved both Seoul and Tokyo, helping smooth the way to increased trilateral defense cooperation with their mutual ally, the U.S., in recent months.

Still, the festering wartime labor dispute has prevented the two neighbors from pursuing more vigorous security tie-ups despite encouragement from Washington.

Tokyo and Seoul’s dispute is related to a 2018 South Korean Supreme Court ruling over compensation on the issue. Yoon’s government has been searching for a solution to avoid a potentially more permanent diplomatic rupture by heading off any decision by the top court to finalize an order to liquidate assets seized from one of two Japanese firms sued over forced labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The Japanese government maintains that historical issues were resolved under the 1965 bilateral treaty that normalized ties between the countries and included a payment of $500 million from Japan to South Korea. However, Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, argued that a deeper examination of the colonial period was needed before the row could be resolved.

A number of the former wartime laborers in South Korea and their supporters are seen as unlikely to accept any deal to settle their legal battles unless the Japanese firms consent to the court rulings and the payouts. Meanwhile, Tokyo has urged the companies not to accept the court decisions, which it fears would potentially open the floodgates to similar rulings.