South Korea and Japan agreed Friday to hold a finance ministers' meeting in Tokyo at an early date, resuming a consultation mechanism that has been stalled for nearly two years amid badly frayed relations.

South Korean Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan and his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso reached the agreement during a one-on-one meeting held on the sidelines of a series of international meetings that the top economic policymakers were attending.

"The finance ministers of the two countries exchanged views on a broad range of issues, including the trends of the world and the two economies, ways to increase regional financial cooperation, G20 and APEC issues," Seoul's finance ministry said in a statement.

"In particular, the two finance ministers agreed to hold a Korea-Japan finance ministers' meeting in Tokyo at the earliest possible date from the context of revitalizing policy consultation," it said.

The two countries have held finance ministers' meetings since

2006 to discuss economic trends and other major issues, but the process was stalled after the last meeting in November 2012 amid political tensions, the ministry said.

Friday's meeting marked the first time the finance ministers of Seoul and Tokyo have met one-on-one since November 2012. Relations between the two neighbors have been frayed due to historic and territorial rows stemming largely from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea.

Ahead of the meeting with Aso, Choi told South Korean reporters that he wanted to talk about moving economic cooperation between the two countries forward, separately from political relations that have been at one of the lowest ebbs ever in recent years.

"I hope political relations will be resolved smoothly by Japan showing a forward-looking attitude. But on the other hand, there are many areas where the two countries should cooperate in terms of economic relations," Choi said. "As I am in charge of the economic side, I am going to look for ways where we can cooperate in the economic area."

Choi said, however, that economic cooperation cannot help but suffer if the historical tensions worsen. He stressed that not only South Korea, but also Japan should also show a sincere attitude to move relations forward from the principle of separating political and economic ties.

Amid frayed ties, South Korea and Japan have not held a one-on-one summit for more than two years.

As a first step toward improving ties, South Korea has demanded that Japan take sincere steps to resolve the issue of its sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, but Tokyo has rejected the demand, claiming all issues related to the colonial rule were settled through a 1965 treaty that normalized their bilateral relations. (Yonhap)