Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday that he is coordinating bilateral summits with South Korea and China on the sidelines of a trilateral summit meeting scheduled in China later this month.

Kyodo News reported that Abe told a meeting of ruling party and government officials that he will visit India from December 15th to the 17th and China from the 23rd to the 25th.

The South Korea-China-Japan summit will be held in Chengdu, China.

If the leaders of South Korea and Japan sit down for talks on the sidelines, it will be their first bilateral summit in 15 months.

Kyodo said that if the meeting between President Moon Jae-in and Abe takes place, attention will focus on whether the two sides manage to improve relations following Seoul’s decision to extend a military intelligence sharing agreement.

Earlier, the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers held talks in Nagoya, Japan during the Group of 20 foreign ministerial meeting and agreed to push for summit talks on the sidelines of the trilateral summit in China this month.

Strained ties between Korea and Japan over the wartime forced labor issue are facing a turning point with the decision to conditionally renew the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and with talks on Japan's export restrictions also under way.