South Korean President To Visit Japan First Time In 12 Years For Top-Level Talks - Reports

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will visit Tokyo from March 16-17 to meet Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for bilateral talks and will be the first head of South Korea to do so in 12 years, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday, referring to South Korean presidential office

SEOUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2023) South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will visit Tokyo from March 16-17 to meet Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for bilateral talks and will be the first head of South Korea to do so in 12 years, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday, referring to South Korean presidential office.

The previous visit of this kind took place in 2011, as President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea visited Japan. President Moon Jae-in paid a visit to Osaka in 2019, but his visit was timed to coincide with the G20 summit.

"The visit will become an important milestone for the improvement and development of South Korea-Japan relations," the presidential office said in a statement, as quoted by Yonhap.

Seoul hopes the visit will facilitate cooperation between the two countries across various areas, including security, the economy, society and culture, so that South Korea and Japan might overcome the unfortunate history of the past and move toward the future, the statement added, as cited by the media.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government is considering the invitation of the South Korean president to the G7 summit in Hiroshima, which will be held in May, although the final decision will depend on Seoul's implementation of its decision on payments for the former Korean workers of Japanese plants, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported on Thursday, referring to diplomatic sources.

After negotiations with Japan, the South Korean government announced its plan regarding compensation for the victims of forced labor in Japan during the Second World War, who won their court case against the Japanese companies involved in 2018.

In 2018, the South Korean Supreme Court ordered the Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to compensate Koreans used as forced labor during the Second World War.

The decision led to the deterioration of trade relations between the two countries and the imposition of trade sanctions by Japan. South Korea responded by submitting a complaint to the World Trade Organization and even wanted to withdraw from the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). The United States forced South Korea to drop its complaint and to suspend its withdrawal from the GSOMIA.

The new administration of Yoon Suk-yeol set a course for improving the relations with Japan in order to enhance their bilateral cooperation and to facilitate their trilateral security partnership with the US.