While Japan continues to move forward relations with the Philippines and other Asian countries that suffered its second world war brutality, Japan’s ties with South Korea remain tricky and fraught with challenges due to conflicting views on wartime history. Talks by the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea at the weekend, and the attendance by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Monday yesterday at events marking 50 years since the normalisation of diplomatic ties, were hailed by Japanese officials as a step forward to advance bilateral ties. “Being neighbours, Japan and South Korea have many concerns and problems, which is why it is important for us to hold a frank dialogue,” Abe told South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se when they met at his office during Yun’s visit to Japan. While Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Yun agreed on Sunday during the first-in-four-year trip by South Korea’s top diplomat to set the stage for a bilateral summit, no time frame was fixed. Abe and Park have not held formal one-to-one talks since taking office in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Park has set as a precondition progress on the sensitive issue of so-called “comfort women” including Koreans who worked in wartime military brothels for the Imperial Japanese Army. These women are euphemistically known as “comfort women” in Japan. In assessing current bilateral ties, a senior Japanese foreign ministry official said: “People have been resigned, feeling that nothing can be done. “But this is starting to change to an atmosphere that something must be done.” Park’s hardline policy towards Japan is also shifting, thanks to overtures by the United States to its two Asian allies, Japan and South Korea, to be on good terms, due to the pressing need of the trilateral framework to tackle regional security challenges posed by North Korea and China, political pundits say. Park signalled last month to pursue “two-track” diplomacy towards Japan, which means separating current state-to-state relations from historical issues stemming from Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. “Future Japan-South Korea relations will be anchored on the two-track approach wherein they will cooperate on diplomatic and security affairs while they continue to discuss history issues separately,” said Junya Nishino, an associate professor with Keio University’s Department of Political Science and an expert on Korean affairs. Public sentiment in South Korea is also adding to the momentum. A survey released recently by the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies showed that 56.3 percent of South Koreans were in favour of a bilateral summit even without an apology by Abe in his forthcoming statement in the summer on the World War II anniversary. The figure was more than the disapproval rate of 38.5 percent. Among signs of a budding rapprochement, bilateral meetings were held last month by their finance ministers for the first time since 2012, and their defence ministers, the first in four years. On Sunday, Kishida and Yun, who engaged in two-hour talks and a dinner over Japanese tempura in a laid-back atmosphere, tried to finally put to rest their countries’ most recent clash over the proposed Unesco World Heritage listing of historical industrial sites in Japan. Their meeting also resulted in the foreign chiefs’ reciprocal visits to each other’s country. Still, even after half a century from the 1965 bilateral pact, full reconciliation between Japan and South Korea over history issues still looks elusive. In comments that surprised Japanese officials, Park said in a recent interview with the Washington Post: “There has been considerable progress on the issue of the comfort women and we are in the final stage of our negotiations.” A senior Japanese foreign ministry official downplayed this, saying working-level talks on the comfort women issue for the past year “have not produced any breakthrough”. Japan has demanded South Korea stop using the term “sex slaves” to refer to comfort women, but Seoul has rejected this, according to sources close to bilateral ties. Tokyo maintains that the issue of compensation was legally settled with South Korea under the 1965 pact. Even so, Japan provided money in a form of atonement to former comfort women through the Asian Women’s Fund and issued a 1993 landmark statement recognising the Japanese military’s involvement in setting up “comfort stations.” South Korea has repeatedly demanded that Japan settle the issue in a way that is acceptable to the surviving victims, including with an apology and compensation for the comfort women – an issue Japan maintains was legally settled with South Korea under the 1965 pact. Keio University’s Nishino said there was now a sense of “fatigue” in Japan, even at the level of citizens, towards South Korea for “changing the goal posts”, referring to how South Korea is seen as changing its position even after a deal is struck. and continues to harp on old arguments. Based on a public opinion survey on foreign affairs conducted by Japan’s Cabinet Office last year, the percentage of Japanese who “do not feel friendly” towards South Korea was 66.4 per cent, marking the worst level since the poll was first carried out in 1978. “Distrust and frustration of Japanese people to South Korean people have reached its peak. This has been continuing for the past two years and will likely continue for some time,” Nishino said. He added that exacerbating the weariness of Japanese people was what was perceived as South Korea’s “tattle-tell” diplomacy in which Park would complain to foreign leaders about historical issues with Japan.