Closer South Korea-Japan relations are vital for security in the region, a U.S. senator said Friday, urging the two countries to mend their unusually strained ties.

“The United States needs Japan and South Korea to work together. A closer bond between our treaty allies will immeasurably improve security in the region and enhance American security as well,” said Marco Rubio, a Republican senator for Florida, in a speech given at a local policy study institute.

He was in Seoul as part of his Asian trip and to meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se later in the day.

“This is our national interest, that the relationship between South Korea and Japan ... (is) improved,” said the senator, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as the Sub-committee on East Asian & Pacific Affairs.

The U.S. may leave the two countries to solve their diplomatic problems themselves rather than play a mediating role, he indicated, saying, “What I think the U.S. can do is to continue to state the importance of the relationship being repaired and to encourage both countries to figure (out) a way forward.”

“I hope we can explore finding ways that our allies and partners can be further empowered to tackle these challenges jointly, with the knowledge that the U.S. will still remain deeply committed to the security and prosperity in the region,” Rubio said.

The remarks came amid escalating Seoul-Tokyo tensions over Japan’s renewed territorial claims to the easternmost South Korean islets of Dokdo as well as other issues related to Japan’s past colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.

Last month, Japan’s nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid respects at the controversial Yasukuni war shrine, a symbol of Japan’s wartime aggressions here, further deteriorating the already prickly relations. (Yonhap)