South Koreans are much more optimistic than Japanese people about the prospects for North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons, an annual survey showed Monday, as a series of summits this year have led to a dramatic defusing of tensions.

Over 60 percent of the South Korean respondents believed the North Korean nuclear issue would be resolved within 10 years, while only 10 percent of the Japanese surveyed expected that to be the case.

Despite North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's commitment to complete denuclearization, first made at an inter-Korean summit in late April, 65.1 percent of Japanese respondents thought it would be difficult to resolve the issue, almost unchanged from the previous year, according to the poll conducted by Japanese nonprofit think tank Genron NPO and South Korea's East Asia Institute.

Last year, 71.3 percent of those polled in South Korea said it would be difficult to resolve the nuclear issue.

In response to a multiple-choice question, 62.7 percent of the South Koreans respondents expected relations between their country and North Korea to improve over the next decade, while only 15.3 percent of the Japanese said likewise and 34.4 percent predicted that inter-Korean ties would remain unstable.

The survey, conducted between mid-May and early June, received valid responses from 1,000 people in each country.

During the period, South Korean President Moon Jae In and Kim met for the second time in a month at the truce village of Panmunjeom and discussed ways to implement the declaration aimed at bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula issued after their first meeting on April 27.

At that time, Kim also expressed his desire to have successful talks with U.S. President Donald Trump during an unprecedented summit in Singapore, which was held on June 12.

(People walking past a large monitor in Tokyo showing an image of Trump-Kim summit)

Asked about the future of the peninsula, 33.7 percent of South Korean respondents said the two countries should be unified, while 24.9 percent expected they would continue to exist separately but form a federation similar to the European Union.

Of the Japanese, the largest proportion of 27.8 percent said they were unsure, followed by 21.6 percent who said North and South Korea would continue to exist as now.

Sohn Yul, president of the South Korean institute, said it was noteworthy that the latest survey, the sixth of its kind since 2013, revealed a huge perception difference over North Korea between the two countries.

At a joint press conference with the Japanese think tank in Seoul, he said that "figuring out the right methodology to resolve the nuclear issue and achieving international cooperation could be quite difficult" if Japan's pessimistic view toward North Korea and the huge difference persist.

Yasushi Kudo, who heads Genron NPO, said Japan so far is not a major player in the restarted negotiations on North Korea's denuclearization, unlike South Korea and the United States, and that is one of the major reasons behind the considerable difference.

On relations between Japan and South Korea, often frayed over wartime and territorial issues, the survey also provided contrasting results.

While 28.3 percent of South Korean respondents said they had favorable feelings toward Japan, up from 26.8 percent a year earlier, the proportion of Japanese with favorable feelings toward South Korea fell to 22.9 percent from 26.9 percent.

The survey found that 50.6 percent of South Koreans and 46.3 percent of Japanese have negative impressions each other, both the lowest since 2013, which compare with last year's 56.1 percent and 48.6 percent, respectively.