Yoon Meets Japanese Business Leaders

President Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday met with senior Japanese business leaders as part of efforts to repair ties with the island country.

Representatives of the powerful Japan Business Federation or Keidanren led by chairman Masakazu Tokura visited Yoon at the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul.

"Cooperation between Korean and Japanese business leaders as trusted partners has served as a buttress that helps maintain bilateral relations," Yoon said. "The two countries should join hands and put their heads together to build a forward-looking cooperative relationship."

Earlier that day, the Keidanren delegates met with leaders of the Federation of Korean Industries for the first time in three years. They adopted a joint statement pledging to "play their role to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries."

Yoon said the resumption of talks "will serve as a momentum to galvanize substantive mutual exchanges."

"The two countries should make joint efforts to find solutions to issues pending between them," he added.

In recent years Japan has more assertively resorted to economic sanctions against Korea over historic spats between the two neighbors.