Vice foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan met in Seoul on Monday to discuss an array of bilateral and regional issues, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said, amid strained ties due to long-running historical and territorial disputes.

Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki arrived in Seoul earlier in the day for a one-day visit to have talks with Cho Tae-yong, a South Korean vice foreign minister, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The rare meeting was reportedly held at the request of Japan ahead of the new year, the 50th anniversary of the normalization of Seoul-Tokyo relations. It also marks the 70th anniversary of Seoul’s liberation from Tokyo’s colonial rule.

The Seoul-Tokyo ties have been at their lowest ebb in recent years due to Japan’s attempts to deny its wartime atrocities, such as sex slavery and its territorial claims to South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo.

Cho and Saiki held a strategic dialogue in Tokyo on Oct. 1, the first in nearly two years. At that time, Cho called on Japan to make sincere efforts to address the historical wounds of Tokyo’s forceful sexual enslavement of Korean women for future-oriented bilateral ties.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has shunned a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe due to Tokyo’s refusal to show sincerity toward the matter of history.

Despite the chilled bilateral ties, Park made a surprise offer to hold a summit with the leaders of China and Japan during a regional summit in Myanmar in November to keep alive momentum for three-way cooperation.

The three countries have pushed to hold foreign ministers’ talks to pave the way for the resumption of a trilateral summit, which has been put on hold since May 2012. But no major headway has been made because Japan had been busy with an election until mid-December.

Saiki’s visit also overlapped with the signing of a military pact among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo to share information on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. South Korea and Japan will share military secrets on the North’s nuke and missile threats via the U.S., which has bilateral military intelligence-sharing accords with each of its two Asian allies.

“Next year, Seoul will face daunting tasks (over how to deal with) history and security issues,” said Jo Yang-hyeon, a professor at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security.

“South Korea has been cautious about holding a summit by putting a priority on resolving the sex slave issue. But Seoul will also face the question of what diplomatic stance it should take toward Japan in the face of U.S. pressure (on mending Seoul-Tokyo ties) and security concerns in the region,” he added. (Yonhap)