South Korea and Japan should seek a "grand bargain" solution to their badly frayed relations, in which Japan gives up its claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo and compensates victims of wartime sexual slavery, U.S. experts said Monday.
  

Brad Glosserman, executive director of Honolulu-based Pacific Forum CSIS, and Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, made the suggestion in a book that they co-authored and is titled "The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash."
  

"We call upon Japan to give up its claim to Takeshima/Dokdo and we also call for payments from the Japanese government to comfort women," Glosserman said during a discussion hosted by the Asan Institute, using a euphemistic term to refer to sexual slavery victims.
  

In exchange, South Korea should explicitly accept the Japanese offers, acknowledge Japan's efforts as a final gesture to settle history issues and commence a forward-looking relationship with Japan, the expert on Japanese affairs said.
  

On South Korea's part, it should formally accept all of the Japanese offers and declare an end to history tensions and a desire to move forward and to create a forward-looking relationship in Northeast Asia and more broadly in Asia-Pacific region and beyond, Glosserman said.
  

"We call for a new Japan-ROK treaty of friendship," he said.
  

Such a treaty should include five points, including a declaration that the two countries would never use force to settle any dispute, Japanese support for the unification of the Korean Peninsula under Seoul, and Seoul's support for Japan playing a constructive regional security role in East Asia, the expert said.
  

"This approach is bold and potentially controversial. But we argue that it is also necessary," the two authors said in a joint article. "It would unshackle the potential for closer South Korea-Japan relations. It would surmount the historical and territorial issues that have constrained relations between the two countries."
  

Snyder said the U.S. can help create an enabling environment for the two countries to reconcile with each other.
  

"We've already seen the U.S. involved behind the scenes in establishing a pattern of adherence to past statements," he said, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's pledge to honor the country's past statements of apology, including the 1993 Kono Statement.
  

Chances of a "grand bargain" materializing appear low, however.
  

Despite mounting pressure on Abe to use his U.S. visit last month to address historical issues, the nationalist leader has consistently refused to offer a clear apology for the sexual slavery issue, let alone compensate victims.
  

Japan has also been reinforcing its claims to Dokdo in school textbooks. (Yonhap)