The installation of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system had angered China and spilled over into trade, hurting South Korean business interests in the country.
China believed the system’s powerful radar could be used to look inside its territory.
South Korea and the United States have repeatedly said THAAD only serves to defend against the growing missile threat from North Korea.
“Both sides shared the view that the strengthening of exchange and cooperation between Korea and China serves their common interests and agreed to expeditiously bring exchange and cooperation in all areas back on a normal development track,” South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement today.
South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in will meet China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of an upcoming summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries in Vietnam on November 10-11, South Korea’s presidential office said.
The two heads of state are likely to discuss North Korea’s missile and nuclear programme as well as ways to develop bilateral ties, a senior South Korean presidential Blue House official later told reporters, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Pyongyang has undertaken an unprecedented missile testing programme in recent months, as well as its biggest nuclear test yet in early September, as it seeks to develop a powerful nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States.
The moves have angered China, North Korea’s only major ally, and drawn further tough sanctions from the United Nations and the United States.
The recent deterioration in ties between China and North Korea may have contributed to Tuesday’s agreement, the Blue House official said.
The head of Nato urged all United Nation members to fully and transparently implement sanctions against North Korea, which he said has emerged as a global threat able to fire ballistic missiles as far as Europe and North America.
“North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear tests are an affront to the United Nations Security Council,” North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in Tokyo, where he met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Separately, a South Korean lawmaker said North Korea probably stole South Korean warship blueprints after hacking into a local shipbuilder’s database last April.