Senior officials from Korea and Japan have agreed to continue their efforts to resolve the issue of Tokyo's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women.
Korea's chief delegate Lee Sang-deok and his Japanese counterpart Junichi Ihara met in Seoul for talks on Monday,... the seventh of its kind.
Seoul's foreign ministry said the talks were meaningful,... and that both sides believed the issue should be solved by this year.
Korea wants Japan to take sincere steps to compensate the aging victims,... but Tokyo insists the matter was settled through a bilateral treaty signed in 1965.
Seoul also called on Tokyo to take cautious action over issues that could raise tensions between the two countries,... including Abe's upcoming statement.