The foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea agreed yesterday that the two nations will continue discussions toward an early resolution of the issue of wartime labor compensation.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that he and his South Korean counterpart Park Jin welcomed working-level talks on the issue when they met in New York on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering.
As for a possible summit between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol when they are both in New York, Hayashi said, "Nothing has yet been decided," stopping short of clarifying whether the matter was brought up during their talks.
Seoul had said the two leaders were arranging a meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday in the U.S. city, according to KYODO NEWS.
The foreign ministerial meeting came as South Korea is exploring how to deal with the issue of court orders to liquidate assets in the country seized from two Japanese companies that had been sued over alleged forced labor during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
