South Korea and Japan have agreed to take measures to prevent the recurrence of the 2018 radar lock-on incident. 

The agreement was made on Saturday in talks between South Korea's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his Japanese counterpart Minoru Kihara held on the sidelines of the Asia Security Summit, or the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore. 

In a joint statement issued after the talks, the two defense ministers said that the South Korean Navy and Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force have drawn up a document on preventive steps to ensure their safety when encountering each other at sea.

Shin and Kihara said that the South Korean Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force will now carry out operations under the agreement in the event of their peacetime encounter at sea.

The two nations also agreed to resume working-level defense policy meetings and high-level military exchanges in efforts to activate defense dialogue. 

The dispute over an unusually low-altitude flyby conducted by Japanese maritime patrol aircraft over a South Korean warship in December 2018 was a major obstacle for defense exchanges between the two nations. Seoul criticized the plane's approach as a "menacing" flight, while Tokyo has accused the South Korean vessel of having locked its fire-control radar on the plane.