Japan's Abe decries Seoul ending intel deal

Seoul's decision to end a pact on sharing military intelligence has undermined trust, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday, saying he would continue to cooperate closely with the US on security.

He said he expected South Korea to strive to rebuild trust amid deteriorating relations between the two East Asian neighbors.

South Korea on Thursday terminated the deal with Japan amid a row over compensation for South Koreans forced into wartime labor by Japan, formally notifying Japan of the step on Friday. Some observers feel the move might weaken the Seoul-Washington alliance.

A South Korean deputy national adviser, Kim Hyun-chong, moved to counter such fears on Friday, saying that Seoul would continue to share intelligence with Japan through a three-way channel involving the United States.

He said Seoul's move was inevitable because Japan had ignored repeated offers for talks to resolve the issue of the forced laborers, calling Tokyo's behavior a "breach of diplomatic etiquette" that had undermined "our national pride."

Tit-for-tat moves

Tokyo insists that the matter was resolved by a 1965 treaty normalizing ties between the two countries, but South Korea's Supreme Court last year ordered compensation for the victims of Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

The fallout from the dispute has, among other things, seen Japan downgrade South Korea's preferential trade status, a move to which Seoul has promised to respond in kind.

The dispute is of great concern to Washington, which sees both South Korea and Japan as important allies in the region in the face of ongoing threats from North Korea and China. The Pentagon voiced "strong concern and disappointment" at Seoul's decision.

tj/msh (AP, Reuters)

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