President Park Geun-hye will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next week, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday, in the first bilateral summit between leaders of the two neighbors in more than three years.
Park has so far shunned a bilateral meeting with Abe due to territorial and other historical disputes stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Park is set to meet with Abe next Monday, Kim Kyou-hyun, senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs, told reporters.
The two leaders "are expected to exchange in-depth opinions on pending issues, including 'comfort women,'" Kim said, referring to elderly South Korean women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan's World War II soldiers.
The issue of comfort women has long been one of the key sticking points in relations between the two neighbors, along with Japan's territorial claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo.
South Korea has repeatedly urged Japan to face up to history and take forward-looking measures for the former Korean sex slaves.
The planned meeting comes a day after Park is set to host a trilateral meeting with Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. (Yonhap)
