Foreign Minister <person>Taro Kono</person> and his South Korean counterpart, <person>Kang Kyung-wha</person>, remained apart over wartime labor issues, at their meeting held in Munich on Friday.

<person>Kono</person> again called on Seoul to accept Tokyo’s request for holding bilateral talks under the 1965 Japan-South Korea pact on war-related claim rights, following a series of South Korean Supreme Court rulings ordering Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., to pay compensation to South Korean plaintiffs requisitioned to work in Japan during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was under Japan’s colonial rule at the time.

<person>Kono</person> lodged a protest over South Korean National Assembly Speaker <person>Moon Hee-sang</person>’s recent remarks seeking a direct apology from the Emperor to former South Korean comfort women, who were allegedly forced into prostitution for Japanese troops before and during the war.

The Japan-South Korea relationship has been deteriorating also due to an alleged incident in December last year in which a South Korean Navy warship directed its fire-control radar at a Maritime Self-Defense Force patrol ship over the Sea of Japan.

The two countries’ failure to find clues to solving the host of problems through the foreign ministers’ talks highlighted the seriousness of the situation, pundits said.

Still, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said after the bilateral meeting that the two ministers affirmed their intentions to continue talks.

<person>Kono</person> and <person>Kang</person> met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany. They last met in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23.

Although the Japanese government has been repeatedly asking Seoul to enter bilateral talks with Tokyo over the wartime labor issues, the South Korean government has not made a clear-cut response.

According to a Japanese official present at the <person>Kono</person>-<person>Kang</person> meeting, the South Korean minister only reiterated that her country will make a detailed study on the Japanese request.

Japan’s position is that the wartime labor issue was settled under the 1965 agreement.

<person>Kono</person> expressed concern over a plan to seek a South Korean court order for the sale of Nippon Steel assets held in South Korea, which was announced Friday by a lawyer for plaintiffs in a wartime labor lawsuit filed against the major Japanese steelmaker.

The plaintiffs seized the Nippon Steel assets after the company failed to show an intention to hold talks with them following the South Korean Supreme Court ruling on Oct. 30, 2018, that ordered the steelmaker to pay compensation to the former wartime laborers. <person>Kono</person> told <person>Kang</person> that the South Korean government should act quickly on the matter.

On the South Korean assembly chief’s comments, made in an interview with a U.S. news agency, that it is desirable for the Emperor to apologize to former comfort women, <person>Kono</person> reiterated Tokyo’s demand for the withdrawal of the remarks and an apology from the South Korean side over the remarks.

But <person>Kang</person> made no response to the Japanese demand.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government attaches importance to cooperation with South Korea over issues related to North Korea.

<person>Kono</person> and <person>Kang</person> reaffirmed that their countries and the United States will continue working closely so that progress will be made at an upcoming second U.S.-North Korea summit toward the denuclearization of North Korea.

U.S. President <person>Donald Trump</person> and North Korean leader <person>Kim Jong Un</person> are slated to meet in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28, following their first meeting held in Singapore on June 12 last year.

<person>Kang</person> told reporters after the meeting with <person>Kono</person> that they shared the view that the second U.S.-North Korea summit must lead to a major deal, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.