Abe, Moon meet after worst period of tension between S. Korea & Japan in decades

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Tension over stalled denuclearization talks between North Korea and the United States was the main issue on the agenda.

Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing “agreed to continue close communication and cooperation toward denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said. “We… decided to work together to ensure that denuclearization and peace continue through prompt North Korea-US dialogue,” he added.

For Moon and Abe it was also a chance to begin patching up ties that plummeted after South Korea’s Supreme Court last year ordered Japanese firms to compensate some South Koreans forced to work for them during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, Reuters said.

The two leaders agreed to meet more often, despite differences over history and trade, Moon’s spokeswoman, Ko Min-jung, said, adding they both wanted to resolve differences through dialogue.