Yoon Suk-yeol, Korean business leaders send condolences after death of Shinzo Abe

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Yoon Suk-yeol, Korean business leaders send condolences after death of Shinzo Abe

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan, shortly before he was shot dead Friday. [AP/YONHAP]

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan, shortly before he was shot dead Friday. [AP/YONHAP]

 
President Yoon Suk-yeol and other Korean political and business leaders expressed their condolences following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday.
 
Abe, 67, died from injuries sustained from a shooting while delivering a campaign speech in front of a small crowd on a street in Nara on Friday, ahead of Japan's upper house elections Sunday.
 
In a message on Friday to Abe's wife, Akie Abe, Yoon said, "I express my condolences and consolation to his bereaved family and the Japanese people over the loss of the longest-serving prime minister in Japan's constitutional history and a respected politician."  
 
He called Abe's shooting an "unacceptable criminal act," according to his presidential office.
 
Police immediately arrested suspected gunman 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, reportedly a former member of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, at the scene of the attack.
 
Abe was proclaimed dead at Nara Medical University Hospital around five hours after he was shot.
 
Japan, like Korea, has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.
 
Abe of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was Japan's longest serving prime minister, serving from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020, when he resigned because of health reasons.
 
Yoon is expected to pay his condolences at a memorial alter set up at the Japanese embassy in Seoul, said a presidential spokesperson Sunday.
 
The president also plans to send a delegation including Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, People Power Party deputy speaker Chung Jin-suk and other senior lawmakers to Tokyo to attend the state funeral ceremony.
 
Korean business leaders also sent their condolences after Abe's death.  
 
The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) said in a statement Saturday, "On behalf of the Korean business community, we extend our deepest condolences for the sudden passing of former Prime Minister Abe."
 
The FKI added, "Korea and Japan are the only friends in East Asia who pursue the common values of liberal democracy and a market economy, and the sudden death of a former leader of a neighboring country, regardless of our political and diplomatic relations, is very regrettable."
 
It then pledged to "work even harder to improve Korea-Japan relations and revitalize economic cooperation with the Japanese business community."
 
The Korea International Trade Association (KITA) offered its condolences to the Japanese people and business community over Abe's death and said, "It is very regrettable that this situation occurred at a time when expectations were rising for the improvement of Korea-Japan relations with the inauguration of new governments."
 
The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry issued a similar statement, calling Abe's death a "tragic incident" and expressing hopes that "efforts to restore Korea-Japan relations will continue."
 
Seoul and Tokyo have faced deteriorated bilateral relations in recent years due to historical issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea and a trade spat from 2019.
 
Former President Moon Jae-in, who often had tense relations with the Abe administration, wrote in a Facebook post Friday, "I am profoundly in grief over the sudden death of former Prime Minister Abe" who "received a lot of respect and love from the Japanese people."
 
Moon recalled that they had "many conversations and made efforts together through more than 20 meetings and phone calls for the development of Korea-Japan relations and for peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia."  
 
Abe is often remembered for his "Abenomics" policies aimed at lifting the Japanese economy out of deflation and remained popular and influential among conservatives in Japan.
 
However, for many Koreans, Abe was considered a right-wing nationalist who often glorified Japan's past militarism and downplayed its atrocities during its colonial rule, including its imperial army's forceful recruitment of girls and young women into wartime sexual slavery, euphemistically referred to as comfort women.  
 
The hawkish Abe had historical revisionism tendencies and throughout his life pursued the revision of Japan's pacifist constitution, which renounces war, and enabled the country's right to collective self-defense, which alarmed the country's Asian neighbors. He made international headlines in 2013 by visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrines World War II war criminals along with war dead.  
 
Abe's assassination came as Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin was in Bali for trilateral talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the first such meeting since the launch of the Yoon administration. They expressed condolences for Abe's death during the meeting, which also included discussions on challenges posed by China, Russia's war against Ukraine and North Korea's recent missile launches, according to the U.S. State Department.
 
Park said, "The Korean government strongly condemns this shooting incident as a violent crime that should not be tolerated under any circumstances."
 
The Yoon administration has been working to improve bilateral relations with Japan.  
 
Yoon sat down for trilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Madrid on June 29, focusing mainly on security cooperation in light of North Korea's threats. However, the South Korean and Japanese leaders have yet to hold a bilateral summit which could be an occasion for the two sides to try to resolve their diplomatic issues.
 
Initially, the South Korean government expected an opportunity soon after Japan's upper house elections. There is interest in Seoul to see what sort of steps can be taken once Tokyo comes out of mourning over Abe's death, and if there could be a reset in relations going forward, as Abe's hardline policies have influenced Kishida, who served as his foreign minister.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]
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