SEOUL: On the eve of a possible encounter with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the margins of a NATO meeting in Spain later this month, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol indicated on Wednesday that nothing has been finalised.

"It's a little difficult for me to affirm anything before it's settled with diplomatic issues, but nothing has been finalised," Yoon told reporters as he came for work.

The president is scheduled to visdit Madrid for a NATO summit on June 29-30, prompting suspicion that he would meet with Kishida on the sidelines, according to media reports.

The meeting, if held, would be the first between the two countries in almost two years, amid tensions over historical concerns arising from Tokyo's colonial administration of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

The summit is unlikely to take place, according to Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper, because the conditions are not yet ripe, with no suggestion from Seoul on how to handle the issue of compensation for Koreans forced to work for Japanese corporations during colonial rule.

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