Bangkok: South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held their first talks for more than a year on the sidelines of a regional summit in Thailand, Moon’s office said, with the neighbours’ relationship in dire straits.
Ties between Seoul and Tokyo – both of them US allies facing the twin challenges of nuclear-armed North Korea and an increasingly assertive China – are at rock bottom over a dispute related to Japan’s use of forced labour during World War II, with the countries trading retaliatory sanctions.