Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will visit South Korea on May 7-8 and meet with South Korean President Yun Seok Yeol, informed Japanese newspaper Japan Times. The trip will be a return visit after the two leaders met in March 2023 when Yoon Suk Yeol arrived in Japan.
According to Fumio Kishida, the summit with the South Korean president will give impetus to “shuttle diplomacy”, by which the parties intend constant meetings between the leaders of the two states. “It will be a good opportunity to frankly exchange views on the development path of Japan-South Korea relations and the rapidly changing international situation,” Kishida said.
The Japanese Prime Minister’s last visit to South Korea was in February 2018, when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics at that time, Remarks Nikki.
At a meeting in May, the leaders of Japan and South Korea will assess progress made following the March summit. Next, the parties agreed to overcome the accumulated contradictions caused by the historical legacy of the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945). The countries notably announced a return to cooperation within the framework of the agreement on the global exchange of military information (GSOMIA). The agreement provides for the exchange of intelligence data and other confidential military information relating to social and military developments taking place in North Korea.
In March, Tokyo and Seoul also achieved trade and economic detente in their local “trade war”. Japan has lifted restrictions on exports to Korea of ​​key materials used in the production of semiconductors (semiconductors account for about 20% of Korean exports). In response, Seoul withdrew the complaint filed against Japan at the WTO. On April 28, Tokyo also announced that it would put South Korea back on the list of preferred trading partners immediately after a similar move by Seoul.
During the presidency of the previous South Korean leader Moon Jae-in (2017-2022), bilateral relations deteriorated due to the aggravation of the issue of victims of forced labor and the problem of “comfort women” during the occupation of Korea by Imperial Japan. In 2018, South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies such as Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay compensation to affected Koreans.
These demands displeased Tokyo, as the Japanese side considers the problem solved – the Japanese government refers to the 1965 treaty, which provided South Korea with hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and loans. This led to the effective suspension of cooperation under the GSOMIA and the emergence of trade disputes between countries.
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