S Korea, Japan seek better ties amid NKorea missile tensions

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The leaders of South Korea and Japan have agreed to keep up efforts to resolve their historical disputes as they’re pushing to bolster security cooperation with the United States to better deal with North Korean nuclear threats. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Cambodia on Sunday. Yoon’s office says the two agreed to continue consultations to find an early resolution to a current issue, an apparent reference to a long-running spat over Japan’s wartime mobilization of Korean forced laborers during its colonial rule. In 2018, courts in Seoul ordered two Japanese companies to compensate Koreans who had been mobilized as forced laborers but Tokyo has refused to comply.