Japan and South Korean leaders meet to seek way out of row

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has asked President Moon Jae-in of South Korea to take steps to resolve the two countries’ bitter dispute.

The leaders met in China on Wednesday for their first bilateral talks in 15 months. Tensions between their countries are at their worst in decades, after South Korea’s supreme court ordered Japanese firms to compensate some South Koreans for forced labour during Japanese colonial rule. Japan says the issue was settled under a 1965 treaty.

After the ruling, Japan imposed restrictions on the export to South Korea of high-tech materials used in the manufacture of chips, compounding their dispute which threatened to undermine both countries’ security cooperation with the US. South Korea in November made a last-minute decision to maintain an intelligence-sharing deal.

“South Korea should take responsibility and come up with measures to resolve the issue,” Abe told a news conference. “I asked that South Korea initiate steps to restore ties between Japan and South Korea to a healthy state.”

Moon and Abe met on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, in Chengdu city, with tension over stalled denuclearisation talks between North Korea and the United States the main issue.

Moon expressed hopes for an early solution to their differences. “Japan and South Korea are historically and culturally the closest neighbours,” Moon said. “We’re not in a relationship that can set the two apart even when there’s some discomfort for a while.”