South Korea and Japan are set to hold the first round of official negotiations later this month since the breakdown of their trade relations in July of this year, media reported Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) South Korea and Japan are set to hold the first round of official negotiations later this month since the breakdown of their trade relations in July of this year, media reported Thursday.
Talks are scheduled for December 16 and will be held on the director-general level, South Korean state news agency Yonhap cited the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
"We agreed to hold an in-depth discussion that can contribute to settling the pending issue between the two countries," Yonhap quoted a statement released by the Korean trade ministry.
The two countries held a preparatory meeting in Vienna on Wednesday, the seventh of it's kind on an unofficial level.
Last month, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Seoul and Tokyo had agreed to coordinate their efforts for organizing a meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the trilateral summit with China, scheduled for December.
Relations between the two Asian countries have been strained since July, when a South Korean court ruled that Japanese companies must pay reparations to former Korean workers who were forced into labor during World War II by Imperial Japan.
The tensions further escalated after Japan introduced limitations on the exports of chemicals widely used by South Korea's electronics industry. Additionally, Tokyo removed Seoul from its list of trading partners with preferential rights.
South Korea initially planned to withdraw from an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, but reversed its decision earlier in November.
