SEOUL: President Yoon Suk Yeol said Sunday he feels a responsibility to make South Korea-Japan relations even better than they were during their good times, as he held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The two leaders met in Seoul for their second summit in less than two months, a highly symbolic meeting demonstrating the neighbouring nations are firmly on course to the full restoration of long-frayed relations, reported Yonhap news agency.
“The current of a good change is difficult to make at first, but once it is made, it often becomes the trend. I believe that the current of South Korea-Japan relations today is such,“ Yoon said.
“In less than two months since I had a summit with you in Tokyo, South Korea-Japan relations are clearly showing improvements in earnest. I feel a responsibility to create a good period in our bilateral relations that is even better than the good times of the past,“ he added.
Yoon also said history issues should not keep relations between the two countries from moving forward.
“I think we should get out of the perception that South Korea and Japan cannot take even a single step forward unless issues of the past are not completely settled,“ Yoon said.
Kishida thanked Yoon for his warm welcome, saying he is pleased to be fully restoring “shuttle diplomacy” between them and hopes to exchange opinions on ways to move the bilateral relationship forward.
Both leaders also agreed to allow a group of South Korean experts to visit Japan to inspect the planned release of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
“With regard to the contaminated water from Fukushima, we agreed on the dispatch of an on-site inspection team of South Korean experts,“ Yoon said during the press conference at the presidential office.
“I hope a meaningful step will be achieved in consideration of our people’s demands for a science-based and objective inspection,“ he said.
Kishida said the Japanese government’s commitment to inheriting past administrations’ positions on the two countries’ shared history is “unwavering.”
He also said his “heart aches” for the Korean people who suffered under Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Kishida arrived in Seoul earlier in the day for a two-day working visit and stopped at Seoul National Cemetery to pay his respects to Korea’s fallen independence activists and war veterans before heading to the presidential office.
Kishida’s visit comes as bilateral relations have warmed significantly following Seoul’s decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor without contributions from Japanese firms.
Yoon traveled to Tokyo 10 days after the decision was announced and held a summit with Kishida as the first South Korean president to pay a bilateral visit to Japan in 12 years.
Kishida’s visit is also the first bilateral visit by a Japanese leader in 12 years, marking the full-scale resumption of “shuttle diplomacy,“ or regular mutual visits, as agreed between Yoon and Kishida during their summit in Tokyo in March. - Bernama