{"id":20966,"date":"2015-11-02T00:49:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T00:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/s-korea-and-japan-leaders-meet-for-first-time-in\/"},"modified":"2015-11-02T00:49:14","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T00:49:14","slug":"s-korea-and-japan-leaders-meet-for-first-time-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/s-korea-and-japan-leaders-meet-for-first-time-in\/","title":{"rendered":"S Korea and Japan leaders meet for first time in years"},"content":{"rendered":"

{First bilateral meet between Park Geun-hye and Shinzo Abe expected to touch on historical differences between nations.}<\/p>\n

South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have held their first formal bilateral talks since both leaders took office, seeking to move beyond a bitter wartime history that has plagued ties between two of Washington’s key Asian allies.<\/p>\n

The meeting on Monday morning is a diplomatic breakthrough for Abe, who has sought talks with Park amid a push by the United States for Japan and South Korea to improve relations in the face of an increasingly assertive China.<\/p>\n

Abe took office in late 2012 and Park in early 2013. Officials said there were no plans for a joint press conference following the discussions, which began around 10am (01:00 GMT) in Seoul.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Seoul, said face-to-face talks between the two leaders lasted about an hour, longer than had been expected, and that a longer expanded session was underway.<\/p>\n

The Asian neighbours have struggled to find common ground over Japan’s 1910-1945 colonisation of Korea, particularly the issue of “comfort women”, as the mostly Koreans forced into prostitution at Japanese wartime military brothels are euphemistically known in Japan.<\/p>\n

Key issue<\/p>\n

Park said in an interview with Japan’s Asahi Shimbun daily last week that resolving the issue was central to better ties with Japan.<\/p>\n

South Korea says Japanese leaders have repeatedly failed to properly atone for wartime atrocities.<\/p>\n

Japan, which says the issue of compensation for “comfort women” was legally settled by their 1965 diplomatic treaty and that it stands by a 1993 government apology, worries that even if it takes fresh steps, South Korea will decline to bring the issue to a close.<\/p>\n

“While the talks lasted longer than expected, there is little expectation that Abe will satisfy Seoul’s demands for new language on the comfort women issue,” said Fawcett.<\/p>\n

“The importance of all this is very much the fact that they are talking at all – welcome progress as far as the US is concerned.”<\/p>\n

The Park-Abe meeting came after a summit of South Korean, Japanese and Chinese leaders on Sunday where they agreed to restore what had been an annual forum to work towards greater economic integration and regional cooperation.<\/p>\n

“Japan, China and South Korea are neighbours, and because we are neighbours, there are difficult issues among us,” Abe said at a news conference with Park and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.<\/p>\n

South Korean and Japanese business executives who met last week in Tokyo expressed hope that better ties would improve bilateral trade, which began declining in 2011.<\/p>\n

\"Abe<\/figure>\n

ALJAZEERA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{First bilateral meet between Park Geun-hye and Shinzo Abe expected to touch on historical differences between nations.} South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have held their first formal bilateral talks since both leaders took office, seeking to move beyond a bitter wartime history that has plagued ties between two of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000069967,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20966.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20966.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20966"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20966"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}