Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is scheduled to visit South Korea for two days starting next Sunday to confirm cooperation with President Yoon Suk Yeol to further enhance bilateral ties.
As reported by Kyodo Newsthis trip for Kishida would be his first to Korea since he took office in October 2021.
Relations between Japan and South Korea had fallen to their lowest point in decades under Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae In, over a dispute over wartime workers’ compensation.
Japan re-includes South Korea in the list of preferred countries to trade in the midst of the thaw
But they have been improving as the Yoon government, which took office in May 2022, proposed a solution to the matter in early March. That same month he visited Tokyo to hold talks with Kishida.
They then agreed to resume reciprocal visits by Japanese and South Korean leaders, suspended since 2011. Subsequently, Kishida decided to pay a prompt visit to South Korea.
The last visit by a Japanese prime minister to South Korea was in February 2018, when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
Tokyo and Seoul have long clashed over issues related to Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
Kishida hopes to pave the way for a successful G7 summit in his Hiroshima constituency later this month, where Yoon has been a guest.
