Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Sunday that some change is observable in the South Korean government's response to the issue of compensation for Japan's wartime forced labor. 

According to Kyodo News, Suga made the remarks during an open forum at which he also repeated Tokyo's position that last year's South Korean top court rulings on the forced labor issue are the main cause of strained relations between the two nations.

The secretary reportedly said that there is a mood being created in South Korea that something has to be done to somehow reach a compromise.

Suga also repeated calls for the South Korean judiciary to abide by the 1965 treaty normalizing ties between the two nations. 

Japan claims that the treaty resolves all colonial-era reparation issues, including individual claims over forced labor.