Yoon to hold summit with Kishida in Japan next week

• Published date: 09 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit Japan next week for a summit with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the Korean presidential office said Thursday. It will be the first visit to Tokyo for a summit by a Korean leader in 12 years.

The presidential office announced that Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee will embark on a two-day trip to Tokyo on March 16 at the invitation of the Japanese government. But the exact date of the summit has yet to be fixed, according to the presidential office.

The scheduled meeting is expected to bring about the restoration of shuttle diplomacy, referring to meetings held by the leaders of the neighboring countries once a year.

Shuttle diplomacy came to an abrupt halt in 2011 as bilateral relations became strained due to renewed disputes over history and territory dating back to Imperial Japan's 1910-45 occupation of Korea.

In a written statement, the presidential office expressed hopes that the summit will "serve as a momentum to boost future-oriented bilateral relations in various fields including security, economy, society and culture as well as people-to-people exchanges."

The announcement came three days after Seoul unveiled a plan to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor through a public fund, without direct payments from responsible Japanese firms.

The arrangement, aimed at improving ties with Japan which slumped to their worst level in recent years, was welcomed by Tokyo which said the move will "help restore healthy bilateral relations."

Yoon's planned visit to Tokyo comes four months after he held a meeting with Kishida in Phonm Penh, Cambodia on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. They also held a one-on-one meeting in New York last September.

While detailed agendas of the summit have yet to be announced, the two leaders are expected to discuss ways to restore ties in economy, trade and defense and set the clock back to before...