The leaders of South Korea and Japan took steps Thursday to boost frayed diplomatic and economic relations, but their high-profile Tokyo summit was held under a pair of shadows: the latest North Korean ballistic missile test and a new lawsuit in South Korea that could scupper hopes of resetting bilateral relations.
North Korea said Monday it has conducted submarine-launched cruise missile tests, days after its leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready to repel its rivals' "frantic war preparation moves."
Defying North Korean anger, threats and missile tests, South Korean and U.S. forces launched more than a week of major new joint military drills Monday, the first full-scale exercises of their kind on the divided peninsula in six years.
South Korea's government on Monday announced a new plan to resolve a long-running historical division with Japan and end a complex and emotive spat on wartime forced labor that drove bilateral relations to all-time lows in 2018.