South Korea’s president offers Shinzo Abe long-awaited summit ahead of trilateral meeting

The leaders of South Korea, China and Japan are meeting next week

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Park Geun-hye, president of South Korea, has yet to meet Shinzo Abe one-to-one since coming to office. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 3:30pm, 26 Oct 2015Updated: 4:29pm, 26 Oct 2015

South Korea said on Monday it had offered Japan a long-awaited leadership summit that would mark a major conciliatory step towards improving relations after an extended period of diplomatic rancour and mistrust.

A spokeswoman for the presidential Blue House said the South had proposed a summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Park Geun-hye on the side of a trilateral leadership meet being held with China in Seoul next week.

“We have made a proposal to hold the summit on November 2, but have not heard from Japan yet,” the spokeswoman said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will hold talks with South Korea and China in a trilateral summit next week. Photo: EPA

If the summit goes ahead, it will cap a series of moves in recent weeks by Seoul and Tokyo towards a rapprochement - prompted and pushed by their mutual military ally, the United States.

Relations between the two neighbours have never been easy - clouded by sensitive, historical disputes related to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula and, in particular, the issue of Korean “comfort women” forcibly recruited to work in Japanese wartime military brothels.

Since taking office in February 2013, Park has repeatedly refused to meet one-on-one with Abe, arguing that Tokyo has yet to properly atone for its past actions.