Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has referred to South Korea as a value-sharing country for the first time in years, but repeated Tokyo’s claim that Seoul needs to fix the bilateral tension over Japan’s wartime forced labor issue. 

In a policy speech before the Diet on Monday, Abe said South Korea is the most important neighboring country for Japan and shares basic values and strategic interests. 

The last time that Abe described Seoul-Tokyo ties as relations based on shared values was in 2014, two years after he became the Japanese prime minister for the second time. 

However, he said such proximity and connection makes it all the more necessary for Seoul to keep a country-to-country promise with Tokyo and build future-oriented bilateral relations, apparently referring to the normalization treaty signed between the two countries in 1965. 

Japan has asserted that the 1965 deal settled all colonial-era reparation issues, including compensation for South Koreans forced to work for Japanese firms during World War II. 

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi also said in a Diet speech on Monday that Japan will strongly urge South Korea to offer solutions over the forced labor issue and continue discussions between diplomatic authorities to address the issue.