Japan and South Korea remain divided over the issue of people referred to as wartime comfort women, five years after the countries agreed to settle the issue.
In December 2015, Tokyo and Seoul confirmed that the issue was resolved finally and irreversibly.
Japan's Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide has called on South Korea to take the initiative in restoring healthy bilateral relations.
Suga made the remark in a meeting with South Korea's National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won in Tokyo on Tuesday.
NHK has learned that a senior Japanese foreign ministry official will visit South Korea from Wednesday, apparently to seek a breakthrough to improve bilateral ties.
Takizaki Shigeki, the director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau will stay in South Korea for three days.
Japan and South Korea have agreed to reopen business and other travel between the two countries on Thursday.
Japan's Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu on Tuesday announced the bilateral agreement as part of efforts to ease coronavirus entry restrictions.
Japan is expected to agree with South Korea to start allowing people to travel between the two countries for business purposes as early as this week.
The Japanese government is gradually easing entry restrictions that have been put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Japan's Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in to take steps to improve the strained relationship between the two countries in their first telephone conversation.
Suga and Moon spoke for about 20 minutes on Thursday at South Korea's request. The conversation began at 11 a.m.
South Korea has again expressed its concerns about Japan's plan to release into the sea radioactive wastewater building up at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The first vice minister of South Korea's science ministry Jeong Byungseon was speaking at a general meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on Tuesday.
People in parts of Japan and South Korea are cleaning up after Typhoon Haishen battered both countries.
The storm left two people dead and several others are missing in southwest Japan. 96 others were injured in the country.
Japan is urging South Korea to maintain pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs by ensuring that sanctions against the North continue to be enforced.
On Tuesday, Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Tomita Koji had his first meeting with Lee In-young, who assumed the post of South Korea's unification minister in July.
A South Korean coast guard ship has ordered a Japanese coast guard vessel to end a survey it is conducting in Japan's exclusive economic zone off the southwestern prefecture of Nagasaki.
The Japan Coast Guard, or JCG, says the South Korean ship radioed the demand shortly after 4 a.m. on Saturday when the Japanese vessel was engaged in a survey about 140 kilometers west of Meshima, an islet in Nagasaki's Goto Islands. The JCG says the waters are within Japan's EEZ.
Seoul has again asked the World Trade Organization to establish a dispute settlement panel over Japan's tightened export controls of industrial materials to South Korea. The WTO is expected to approve the request.
In July last year, Japan tightened export controls for three materials used to make high-tech products such as semiconductors.
South Korea continues to oppose Japan's tightened controls on exports of industrial materials, one year after they were imposed.
Japan announced the measures on three materials essential to produce semiconductors on July 1 last year, citing security concerns.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha says she has asked UNESCO to consider removing a group of Japanese industrial sites from its World Heritage list.
Kang told reporters on Tuesday that she sent a letter to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay the previous day.
South Korea has reopened a complaint with the World Trade Organization over Japan's tightened export controls on three high-tech materials.
Officials of South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy revealed the reopening to NHK on Thursday.