Tokyo, May. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday that he is arranging a trip to South Korea for talks with President Yoon Sok-yul in return for his March visit to Tokyo, with the aim of strengthening relations between them ahead of the upcoming G-7 summit.
Tokyo and Seoul are mending ties that have been strained by war-history disputes as they deepen trilateral security cooperation with Washington, the Associated Press reports.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Ghana as part of his multi-country trip to Africa and Singapore, Kishida said he hopes to visit May 7-8 and exchange views with Yun on ways to accelerate the strengthening of bilateral ties and discuss regional and global issues. .
“If my visit to South Korea materializes before the G-7 summit, I expect it to be a great opportunity to give impetus to our ‘shuttle diplomacy’ and exchange views heart-to-heart on accelerating the Japan-South programme, who is hosting the Hiroshima Summit from May 19-21,” said Kishida. (May) Korea relations and the world situation will change drastically.
Kishida will be the first Japanese leader to visit South Korea since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the Pyeongchang Olympics in February 2018. The two leaders are expected to focus their cooperation and feedback on North Korea’s development of nuclear and missile weapons.
Japan and South Korea want to ensure their relations are on track for a major recovery ahead of the G7 summit, to which Yoon was invited as one of eight outreach countries. The two leaders are also expected to hold a trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines.
Washington has strengthened its cooperation with its major Asian allies.
Yoon was in Washington last week and secured a stronger US commitment on expanded nuclear deterrence, including improved information sharing and nuclear submarine visits to South Korea. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was at the White House on Monday and Biden reaffirmed the US commitment to the Philippines’ security and noted the “deep friendship” between the two countries.
Relations between Japan and South Korea have improved rapidly since March, when the Yoon government announced plans to use South Korean funds to compensate forced workers without asking for contributions from Japan. The plan aims to end a dispute stemming from South Korean court rulings in 2018 that ordered Japanese companies to compensate Korean workers for mistreatment and forced labor during World War II, when the Korean peninsula was a Japanese colony.
Since Yoon’s trip to Japan in March, Tokyo and Seoul have mostly resolved their trade disputes. The two sides also held the first talks between their finance ministers in seven years, seeking to boost cooperation on resilient supply chains.
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