Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will visit South Korea later this week for talks with President Yoon Suk Yeol, the presidential office said Tuesday, as Kishida is preparing to leave office with a legacy of improving long-frayed relations with Seoul.
After arriving Friday for a two-day visit, Kishida will hold talks with Yoon, where the two leaders will look back on the achievement of cooperation between the two countries and discuss ways to further move bilateral, regional and international cooperation forward, Yoon’s office said.
It will be Kishida’s 12th summit with Yoon in just about two years. It will also be their last summit as Kishida has announced a decision to give up on reelection as prime minister and leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party after three years on the job.
Yoon and Kishida have developed close bonds after Yoon decided last year to resolve the long-running row over Japan’s wartime mobilization of Koreans for forced labor by compensating victims without asking Japanese f
irms for contributions.
The two leaders have since restored the long-suspended “shuttle diplomacy” of visiting each other whenever necessary and held a series of meetings on the sidelines of international conferences. The restored ties have also significantly bolstered trilateral security cooperation with the United States.
During a press conference last week, Yoon said he aims to maintain cooperation with Japan regardless of who becomes the new prime minister in Japan’s upcoming election.
According to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, Yoon and Kishida plan to discuss a bilateral cooperation mechanism for emergencies in third countries, which will be laid out in a memorandum of understanding to be signed after the summit.
The agreement aims to facilitate joint efforts in evacuating citizens from conflict zones, including the mutual use of charter flights and vehicles, and expanding information sharing between the consular services and government authorities of South Korea and Japan.
The two nations have worked t
ogether on the evacuation of their citizens from conflict zones since last year, signaling a thaw in the previously strained ties.
During a civil war in Sudan in April 2023, several Japanese nationals were evacuated alongside Koreans using buses arranged by the Seoul government.
When Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, a Korean military transport aircraft evacuated 163 Korean citizens and transported 45 Japanese nationals to South Korea at no charge. In response, a Japanese military aircraft transported 33 South Koreans along with Japanese citizens from Israel to Japan the same month.
Source: Yonhap News Agency