Korean President Lee Myung-bak met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Sunday, a day after he openly pressured Tokyo over the country's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.
The one-day summit in this ancient Japanese city of Kyoto was closely watched as to how the Japanese leader will react to Lee's calls for Tokyo to resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women," warning that the matter would remain a thorn "forever" unless resolved now.
Historians say tens of thousands of Asian women, mostly Koreans, were forced to work at front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during the war. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945.
"Unless we resolve this issue, Japan will have the burden of being unable to resolve an outstanding issue between the two countries forever," Lee said during a meeting in Osaka a day earlier with Korean residents, stressing that time is running short as aging victims would soon pass away.
"Now there are not many left. This year alone, 16 of them passed away. In the not-distant future, all of them will pass away," he said. "Resolving this issue while they are alive will be of big help for the two countries to move forward toward the future, and I believe that this is an issue that can be resolved."
The comfort women issue is becoming increasingly urgent as most victims are elderly and may die before they receive compensation or an apology from Japan. A former Korean sex slave died this past week, leaving only 63 living.
"South Korea and Japan are countries that should cooperate closely in many aspects," Lee said. "Since my inauguration, my position has been that we should deal with Korea-Japan relations based on a belief that the past should not be a stumbling block on the way to the future. We cannot forget the past, but we have to get over it and move on."
Tokyo has also rebuffed Seoul's demand for official negotiations on compensating the aging Korean women. Seoul has been making the demand since its Constitutional Court ruled in August that it is unconstitutional for the Seoul government to make no specific efforts to settle the matter with Tokyo.
Japan maintains that all issues regarding its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including the comfort women, were settled in a 1965 package compensation deal under which the two countries normalized their relations.
Tokyo has also protested the establishment of a statue in front of its embassy in Seoul in memory of the former sex slaves. Japan asked Seoul to block civic activists from installing the "Peace Monument," a statue of a young girl dressed in a traditional Korean dress, but South Korea rejected the demand, saying that setting up the monument does not require approval from the government.
Other agenda items for Sunday's talks were expected to include the North Korean nuclear standoff and a possible free trade agreement between the two countries.
Seoul and Tokyo launched free trade negotiations in 2003, but the talks have been stalled for years amid concern in South Korea that such a deal would widen its trade deficit with Japan.
Lee was scheduled to return home later Sunday. (Kyoto=Yonhap)