Lee and Ishiba vow to boost relations against N-armed North

At their first face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the G7 leaders summit in Canada, the leaders of South Korea and Japan vowed on Wednesday to boost cooperation in the face of growing threats from the nuclear-armed North.

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Newly-elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung met Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, saying he hoped the talk would mark “the beginning of a more forward-looking and improved relationship between Korea and Japan,” according to a readout from Lee's office.

South Korea and Japan are both US allies and economically advanced democracies, but bilateral ties have been strained by historic issues stemming from Japan's 35-year colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including the use of wartime sex slaves.