South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Sunday, Cheong Wa Dae said, in a sign of a thaw between the two countries ahead of a trilateral summit also involving China.

Abe told Park that he was looking forward to the trilateral summit, which may take place in late October in Seoul, Japan‘s Kyodo news agency said, citing Katsunobu Kato, Japanese deputy chief cabinet secretary.

Presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters that Japanese media reports “were not much different” from Park’s conversation with Abe.

Kato quoted Park as saying that she was also looking forward to the event, according to Kyodo.

The two leaders met before an informal working lunch hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for some leaders to help build momentum for a climate conference to be held in Paris later this year.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK also carried a similar report.

It marked the first time that Park and Abe held brief talks since March when they both attended the funeral for Singapore‘s founding father Lee Kuan Yew.

Park has so far shunned bilateral talks with Abe due to his apparent refusal to acknowledge Japan’s responsibility for its past atrocities, including sex slavery.

Park has repeatedly pressed Japan to resolve the issue of the elderly Korean women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan‘s World War II soldiers -- one of the knottiest issues between the two countries.

Earlier this month, Park held summit talks with her Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and agreed to hold a trilateral summit with Japan in Seoul in either late October or early November.

A trilateral summit has not been held since May 2012 due to the tensions in the region. China was represented by its prime minister at the previous summit.

South Korea, China and Japan are key trade partners, but tensions still persist between South Korea and Japan and between China and Japan over territorial and other history-related issues.

Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910-45 and controlled much of China in the early part of the 20th century. (Yonhap)