Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi left Monday for South Korea to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, with attention focused on whether his visit as a special envoy of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can help improve soured bilateral ties.
Arrangements are being made for Hayashi to hold talks with Yoon and incoming South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin separately during his two-day trip for the ceremony in Seoul on Tuesday, he told reporters in Tokyo before departure.
His trip will mark the first visit by a Japanese foreign minister to South Korea since June 2018, with bilateral relations having sharply deteriorated in recent years over wartime history.
Earlier in the day, Kishida told reporters, “Difficult issues remain between the two countries, but they cannot be left as they are.” He pledged to deal with them based on the “consistent position” of Japan.
Hayashi also said he will bring a personal letter from Kishida to Yoon, who won a tight presidential election in March as the conservative main opposition candidate. Yoon called during the campaign for a “future-oriented” approach to the bilateral relationship.
Since Yoon’s victory, expectations have grown for better Tokyo-Seoul ties. They became strained under the current administration of President Moon Jae-in over issues originating from Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
To bring relations back to a “sound condition,” Hayashi underscored the importance of “close communication” with Yoon’s administration.
The disputes between the two nations include the issue of “comfort women” and compensation demands from South Korean plaintiffs over what they say was wartime forced labor.
The term “comfort women” is a euphemism for those who suffered under Japan’s military brothel system before and during World War II. They were forced or coerced into sexual servitude under various circumstances, including abduction, deception and poverty.
In addition, the two sides have been at loggerheads over islets in the Sea of Japan controlled by Seoul and claimed by Tokyo, known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, as well as Japan’s tighter control of semiconductor material exports to South Korea introduced in July 2019.
The inauguration of South Korea’s new government also comes as the United States is seeking to boost its trilateral security cooperation with Japan and South Korea following the renewed North Korean missile and nuclear threat, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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