Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reportedly alluded to the sensitive issue of the Dokdo islets in a call to deal with “all pending issues” during his summit with President Yoon Suk Yeol in Tokyo on Thursday.

Japan’s Kyodo News quoted a Tokyo official who elaborated on Kishida’s comment to reporters after the summit that he had made the call during the meeting with Yoon.

The official said that the “pending issues” include the dispute over the islets, which Japan calls the Takeshima Islands.

An official from Yoon’s office strongly denied that the Dokdo issue was discussed in the summit, saying that it could not have been brought up.

Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, reported that the prime minister also requested that Yoon faithfully implement the 2015 bilateral agreement on the issue of Korean victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery.

Asked if the issue of comfort women was addressed in the summit, Yoon's office declined to give a direct answer, saying that the discussion was focused on the issue of Japan's wartime forced labor.