TOKYO, July 7 -- South Korea and Japan's ties have a complicated history but a dispute over a 14th-century Buddhist statue only added to the pre-existing friction.

According to the Korea Herald, the Kannon Temple in Japan handed over 3D data of the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva statue to Buseoksa Temple after previously fighting a legal battle to reclaim the statue.

Thieves had stolen the statue from Kannon Temple on Japan's Tsushima Island in 2012 and taken it to South Korea.

However, South Korean authorities had arrested the thieves and confiscated the statue, only for the local Buseoksa Temple to file a lawsuit claiming the statue had previously been stolen by Japanese pirates in years past.

In 2023, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled ...