At the first bilateral summit between Japan and South Korea in more than three years, the leaders of the two east Asian nations agreed to accelerate talks on the thorniest issue: the so-called comfort women forced to service Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.
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He had just ended his first meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and was generally pleased with the outcome.
“Cooperation between these countries are important and we can only be pleased when we see our partners trying to bring about change in North Korea by meeting together and renewing their commitment in resolving the nuclear issue”, Hubbard said. “She emphasized the need for an expedited resolution that is acceptable to the victims and convincing to our citizens”.
After a freeze of more than three years, the leaders of South Korea and Japan resumed formal talks focusing on North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear bombs, and a long-running dispute over Japan’s wartime atrocities.
Japan maintains that all issues were settled in a 1965 normalisation agreement, which saw Tokyo make a total payment of $800 million in grants or loans to its former colony.
Leaders of China, Japan and South Korea have pledged to boost economic exchanges.
President Park and Premier Li, agreed to continue working to have their bilateral free trade agreement approved by this year’s end.
Relations between Japan and its two Asian neighbours have been shaky since Mr Abe, who takes a more hawkish, nationalistic stance than many of his predecessors, took office in late 2012.
U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter and South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo also expressed “grave concern” over the North’s intent to conduct a long-range missile launch and a nuclear test, a joint statement issued after their talks said.
The three leaders did not have in-depth discussions about the thorny issues of Japan’s historical perceptions and territorial disputes with South Korea and China.
Japan has so far refused to comply with the demand, insisting that the comfort women were recruited by civilian profiteers and its wartime military-led government was not directly involved. South Korea has been unwilling to publicly criticize China over the issue. The two countries also agreed to share data regarding the yellow dust that blows from from China’s arid and industrial north across to South Korea and Japan.
Abe reportedly told Park that he was concerned by Chinese naval activity in the region, adding that he wanted to cooperate with South Korea and the United States to ensure freedom of navigation.
Japan has already apologized, but many South Koreans see the statements and past efforts at private compensation as insufficient.
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The involvement of China in efforts to get Pyongyang to rejoin the six-party talks is critical given its role as North Korea’s main supporter – largely because it wants a buffer with democratic South Korea and the large US military contingent based there – although it’s unclear how much influence it has over the provocative communist country’s internal politics.
