The leaders of South Korea and Japan are to meet Sunday for their second summit in less than two months, as they push to bolster cooperation following years of fraught ties over historical issues. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is to arrive in South Korea on Sunday for a two-day visit, which reciprocates a mid-March trip to Tokyo by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The exchange of visits between the leaders of the Asian neighbours, the first of its kind in 12 years, signals that both nations are serious about strengthening ties in the face of shared regional challenges such as North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal and China’s increasing assertiveness.
“I hope to have an open-hearted exchange of views with President Yoon based on our relationship of trust,” Kishida told reporters before his departure at his official residence. “Since March, there have been various levels of communication in areas including finance and defense, and I plan to further develop this ongoing trend.” Yoon’s spokesperson, Lee Do-woon, told reporters Thursday that Sunday’s summit was expected to focus on security, economic and cultural cooperation. He earlier said North Korea, overall South Korea-Japan relations and unspecified international issues would be on the agenda.
In their summit in March, Yoon and Kishida agreed to resume leadership-level visits and other talks. In recent weeks, the two countries have also withdrawn the economic retaliatory steps they had earlier taken against each other in previous years when their history row rekindled. Ties between Seoul and Tokyo have long suffered on-again, off-again setbacks over issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The most recent sticking point in their ties was 2018 court rulings in South Korea that ordered two Japanese companies to financially compensate some of their aging former Korean employees for colonial-era forced labour.