South Korea had decided to terminate a military intelligence-sharing deal with Japan that was established to share information about North Korean nuclear and missile activities.
Ties between the two sides began fraying in October 2018 when South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies to compensate victims of forced labour during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
The court ruling has escalated into a tit-for-tat trade dispute that further soured relations.
In its announcement on Thursday that the three-year-old intelligence pact would be abandoned, South Korea’s presidency said recent trade restrictions imposed by Tokyo had done damage to mutual trust.
Kim You Geun, Deputy Director of South Korea Presidential National Security Office, added that the agreement was no longer of “national interest”.
In early July, Shinzo Abe’s government-imposed restrictions on South Korea-bound shipments of materials used in semiconductors and smartphone production.
On Aug. 2, it then approved plans to remove South Korea from a white list of trusted trading partners, sparking protests from Seoul.
South Korea followed by announcing its own plans to downgrade Japan’s trade status.
South Korea’s previous conservative government struck the intelligence agreement with Japan in 2016, arguing that access to information from Japanese satellites and other observation systems was necessary for protection against threats from North Korea.
The deal faces an upcoming deadline for renewal.
Seoul said Tokyo will be officially informed of its decision through diplomatic channels before the date.
South Korea and Japan are among Washington’s closest allies in Asia, and the Trump administration has leaned on them for help in denuclearisation talks with North Korea.