Suga meets with Seoul’s chief of intelligence to improve relations

Tokyo, May 13 (EFE).- Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met Thursday in Tokyo with the head of South Korean intelligence Park Jie-won, in a meeting aimed at improving bilateral relations, according to local media.

Suga met Park, from the National Intelligence Service (NIS), on the second day of his visit to Japan to address issues of common interest after having met with other Japanese representatives, according to diplomatic sources who spoke to Yonhap news agency.

Both addressed the need to improve bilateral relations, which are going through a bad time due to disputes related to the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula until the end of World War II.

Japan has not confirmed the holding of the meeting or its content as it is confidential information, government Spokesman Katsunobu Kato said at a Thursday press conference.

The meeting follows the one held in previous days between Park and his Japanese counterpart and with other senior officials of Japan’s ruling party, in talks that also focused on improving bilateral ties, government sources told Japanese news agency Kyodo.

Relations between the neighboring countries have deteriorated in recent years due to the reopening of a debate on the compensation for women who were victims of sexual abuse by Japanese imperial troops from the 1930s until 1945.

Added to this is the litigation between the two countries due to the decision of the South Korean justice in 2018 to order Japanese companies to compensate South Koreans who were forced to work by the Japanese occupiers before and during World War II. EFE

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