Seoul reaches out to Japan, Yoon says he has ‘certainty’ for cooperation for better ties

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin (left) pose with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the prime minister’s residence in Tokyo on Tuesday. (Yonhap)
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and discussed ways to improve the long-strained bilateral ties between the two countries in Tokyo on Tuesday.

In his meeting with Kishida, Park delivered South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s message and Yoon’s determination to reset bilateral ties with Japan.

“I relayed President Yoon’s message and suggested for the two leaders (Yoon and Kishida) to meet at a convenient time to reset Korea-Japan relations,” Park told reporters at the scene after his meeting with Kishida. The meeting, which began at around 2:15 p.m., lasted for about 20 minutes.

Park told South Korean reporters in Japan that having met Kishida, he has come to think of the Japanese leader as a “trustworthy partner” and that he is “certain” that the two countries can work together to improve ties.

In response, Kishida said South Korea and Japan should establish good relations based on many common values they pursue for future development, Park said.

Yoon and Kishida met in person for the first time at the NATO leaders’ summit last month, but did not hold a bilateral summit. Instead, they participated in a trilateral summit with US President Joe Biden.

Park and Kishida also pledged to make joint efforts to inherit the spirit of the 1988 joint statement inked between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then-Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

The historic declaration is considered to have paved the way for close cooperation between the two neighbors.

Park and Kishida also agreed on the need for a speedy settlement of a major dispute between the two countries involving South Korea’s top court rulings against Japanese firms.

The dispute goes back to 2018, when the South Korean top court ordered Japanese companies to compensate Korean victims for forcing them into labor during the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-1945.

Japanese firms refused to comply with the ruling, however, citing their government’s official position that all issues regarding war reparation were settled through a 1965 agreement which was inked by the two countries to revive diplomatic relations.

In 2021, the judges here ordered the companies to liquidate their Korea-based assets to provide compensation.

As the liquidation would clearly damage South Korea’s already-soured relations with Japan, the Yoon administration has sought ways to resolve the issue without hurting bilateral ties.

The government recently launched a consultative group of public and private groups to gather the opinions of experts and the victims, and Park explained these efforts to Kishida in their meeting, according to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.

Before his courtesy call to Kishida, Park paid tribute to the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at an altar set up at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo.

The late former prime minister was shot during a campaign speech in the city of Nara, days before the country’s upper house elections on July 10.

On Monday, the first day of his three-day trip, Park met with his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi.

There, Park urged Japan to lift the trade curbs it imposed against South Korea in protest of the court ruling in 2018, citing the trade restrictions’ negative effect on bilateral exchanges amid the growing importance of economic security.

The two sides also discussed how they would work together to deter North Korea’s missile provocations.

The bilateral meeting of the foreign ministers in Japan occurred for the first time in four years and seven months, after the last one was held in December 2017.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)

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