SEOUL (THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Efforts to build forward-looking relations between Seoul and Tokyo have been held back by issues related to Japan's 1910-45 colonisation of the Korean Peninsula.

In a move set to further strain bilateral ties, a court here delivered a landmark ruling ordering Tokyo to make reparations to South Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers. The ruling comes amid rising tensions between the two countries over an ongoing legal process here to seize and liquidate South Korea-based assets of Japanese firms to compensate victims of forced labour during the colonial era.