South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have met for talks for the second time in two months in an effort to improve relations between their countries. Yoon received Kishida today on the premises of the presidential office in Seoul with a welcoming ceremony, South Korean broadcasters reported. The Japanese prime minister had previously arrived for a two-day visit, accompanied by his wife Yuko Kishida.
Yoon said after the meeting that South Korea and Japan want to take bilateral ties “to a higher level.” Seoul and Tokyo also want to work more closely together on global issues. Observers had expected that the growing threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program and the trilateral cooperation with the USA would be important issues.
The rapprochement between Tokyo and Seoul is in the great interest of their common security partner Washington, which wants to strengthen its alliances in Asia with a view to North Korea and the increasingly powerful China.
First visit in five years
It is the first visit by a Japanese head of government to South Korea in five years and is also a return visit. Yoon traveled to Tokyo in March. There Yoon and Kishida agreed on a fresh start in the difficult relationship. This also includes a resumption of mutual visits and a bilateral security dialogue.
It last took place in 2018, but then stalled due to a dispute over former Korean forced laborers under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
