S.Korea-Japan ties improve in fallout of N.Korea's nuclear test

By Nobuhiro Kubo and Jee Heun Kahng TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's nuclear test this week set off alarm bells in Japan and South Korea, but the longer lasting fallout may be to cement a fragile reconciliation that could lead to the start of military cooperation between the two key U.S. allies. Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement last month to resolve the issue of "comfort women" forced to work in Japan's wartime military brothels, the emotive impediment to better ties. Japan apologized and promised about one billion yen ($8.47 million)to help surviving women who were coerced into prostitution. North Korea's latest nuclear detonation could crystallise the reconciliation into harmony, say military officials and defense experts, as the two countries unite against a common threat. That in turn could lead to military cooperation instead of the frosty distance they have maintained even though they are Washington's closest allies in the region. "I think the comfort women pact and the North Korean test could spur military cooperation," a senior Japanese navy officer told Reuters, speaking on condition he was not identified. "The test has worsened the security situation in the region." South Korean President Park Geun-hye held talks by telephone with Japanese prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday. The two discussed the need for close cooperation with each other as well as with the United States, China and Russia, according to Park's office. The two defence ministers were to hold a conversation on Friday night. "There may be a broad review of what can be done to improve security cooperation (with Japan)," a senior South Korean official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. Nothing specific has yet been discussed, he added. HISTORY The distance between South Korea and Japan has worried Washington as it increasingly relies on its Asian allies to work together to guarantee security in the region amid China's growing military might. Past strains between Tokyo and Seoul have prevented the two countries from agreeing to share sensitive military information. An attempt to institutionalise security cooperation through the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in 2012 failed after significant domestic opposition in South Korea. In a bid to resolve the impasse, Washington agreed last year to act as a go-between to allow Seoul and Tokyo to swap intelligence. "It really is in the interest of all three countries that we have no seams between that information when you are trying to defend your country against a ballistic missile," Vice Admiral Jospeh Aucoin, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, said on Friday. When asked whether there was hope for greater cooperation between Japan and South Korea in the wake of the latest nuclear test, Aucoin replied "I got to believe so." In December 2014, Seoul said it would send the Lockheed Martin F-35 fleet it has ordered to Australia for maintenance, well beyond their operating range, rather than to a regional maintenance hub for the stealth fighter that will be set up in Japan. "Korea and Japan are in a complicated conflict because of the issue over comfort women, but we’re now in a new situation that shows how the two countries need each other," Choi Kang, vice president and director at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said in a comment published by the institute. Abe and Park, nonetheless, will still have tread carefully around long-held grievances that date back to World War 2. Seoul has criticised school textbooks in Japan that it says distort history and downplay Japan's wartime and colonial atrocities. In April last year, South Korea reproached Japan for approving textbooks it said backed Tokyo's claim to a disputed island in the Sea of Japan, dubbed Takeshima by Japan and Dokdo by South Korea. That falling out came just over two weeks after the foreign ministers of the neighbors and China pledged to improve ties and overcome tension over history and territory. The "comfort women" issue too remains contentious, despite the recent agreement. "North Korea’s nuclear testing will help restore Japan-South Korean military cooperation. However, the comfort women issue will continue to haunt Park's efforts to restore ties," said Chung-In Moon, Professor of Political Science at Yonsei University in South Korea. ($1 = 118.0000 yen) (Additional reporting by Se Young Lee and Jack Kim in Seoul; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)