A senior United States administration official stated that US President Joe Biden invited the presidents of Japan and South Korea to formal three-way talks in Washington on Sunday.

The leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the G7 summit, to which host Japan invited South Korea as long-frozen ties thaw.

Tokyo and Seoul, both key United States allies, have long clashed over issues related to Japan’s cruel colonial rule of Korea from 1910-1945, including sexual slavery and forced labor.

However, since Seoul unveiled a proposal to pay families impacted by wartime forced labor without Tokyo’s involvement, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have made strong steps to repair strained ties.

In a statement, the White House said, “Biden praised the pair’s courageous work to improve their bilateral ties”.

“The three leaders also discussed new coordination over North Korea’s illicit nuclear and missile threats”, the statement continued.

The official stated that the meeting’s date and time would be determined soon, but no other information was immediately available.

Earlier, Yoon and Kishida paid a historic visit to a memorial for Koreans killed in the Hiroshima atomic blast on Sunday.

It was the first time leaders from both countries visited the memorial together and only the second time a Japanese prime minister has done so.

After the visit, at a bilateral meeting, Yoon said, “This will be remembered as a courageous action by Prime Minister Kishida that paves the way for a peaceful future while expressing grief for the Korean victims of the atomic bombing”.

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