(LEAD) S. Korea, Japan agree to hold working-level talks to prevent repeat of 2018 maritime incident: Seoul's defense chief

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with remarks from Seoul's defense chief; CHANGES headline, lead, photo)
By Chae Yun-hwan

SINGAPORE, June 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and Japan agreed Sunday to hold working-level talks to address a yearslong military dispute, involving their maritime operations, Seoul's defense chief said, in the latest effort to improve bilateral relations.

After his talks with his Japanese counterpart, Yasukazu Hamada, in Singapore, Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said the talks will focus on the prevention of such a conflict that has been an irritant in bilateral defense cooperation in recent years.

The dispute flared up in December 2018, when a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft made an unusually low-altitude flyby over a South Korean warship. Seoul has decried the plane's approach as a "menacing" flight, while Tokyo has accused the South Korean vessel of having locked its fire-control radar on the plane.

"Regarding the issue, (we) agreed to resolve it by starting working-level talks and placing a focus on coming up with measures to prevent its recurrence," Lee said.

While Seoul-Tokyo relations have been strained over historical spats stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea, they have recently taken a turn for the better after Seoul's decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor on its own without asking for contributions from Japanese firms.

The latest meeting marked the first two-way defense ministerial talks between the countries since November 2019.

yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
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