South Korea and Japan need to build mutual trust for "sincere strategic cooperation," a senior South Korean official said on a trip to the United States.
  
Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul stressed that resolving the history issue is about "reconciliation and trust" between the neighboring nations, according to his ministry Monday.
  
He was speaking at a meeting with several American pundits well versed in North Korea affairs held in New York last week.
  
Seoul and Tokyo are locked in decades-long disputes over the interpretation of their shared history, especially Japan's atrocities during its 1910-1945 colonization of Korea.
  
The history problem is not a matter of the past but a matter of the present and the future, Cho was quoted as saying.
  
Citing the first-ever summit between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in early November, he said the meeting produced "momentum" for improving bilateral relations.
  
Cho also dismissed speculation that South Korea is leaning toward China over the U.S., saying it is not in line with Seoul's diplomatic policy. (Yonhap)