Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met with South Korea’s top intelligence official on Tuesday in a sign of a thaw in relations between the two countries, but maintained that South Korea should take the initiative in resolving their dispute over compensation for Japanese World War II actions. National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won arrived in Tokyo over the weekend and met with top officials of Suga’s governing party and government. Suga thanked Park for traveling to Tokyo despite the coronavirus, and told him that Japan-South Korea relations, as well as mutual cooperation with their joint ally, the United States, are “indispensable” in dealing with issues such as North Korea’s missile and nuclear threats, his office said in a statement.