Korea's top envoy finds Kishida 'attentive' in Tokyo

Foreign Minister Park Jin, left, with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, at the residence of the prime minister in Tokyo on Tuesday. [YONHAP]

Foreign Minister Park Jin stressed Seoul’s commitment to improving relations with Tokyo in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday.

“After meeting with Prime Minister Kishida several times on the occasion of the NATO summit in Spain, President Yoon Suk-yeol was convinced that he and Minister Kishida could work together to develop friendly and cooperative relations between Korea and Japan as a reliable partner,” Park told a group of reporters following his meeting with Kishida at his residence on Tuesday.

“That was a message from Yoon that I conveyed to the prime minister,” Park said. “I am hopeful that with my recent visit to Tokyo, the improvement in relations between the two countries will be accelerated.”

Park said that Kishida listened “with high attentiveness” and that he responded with a positive assessment of his conversations with Yoon in Madrid, expressing his hopes for good conversations with Yoon in the future.

Park also conveyed condolences to Kishida on the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8. Before his meeting with Kishida, Park visited a mourning altar set up at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters.

Park’s visit, scheduled through Wednesday, is the first by a Korean foreign minister to Tokyo to meet with Japan's top envoy since December 2017 and is a sign of attempts to improve relations.

Yoon’s foreign policy team has stressed the need to revitalize ties with Japan, including on the security front, and numerous trilateral meetings have been hosted in recent months, including a trilateral summit of the leaders of Korea, Japan and the United States on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Madrid on June 29.

Yoon and Kishida met several times on the sidelines of the NATO summit, although no official summit was held.

The last leaders' summit between Japan and Korea took place in Beijing in December 2019.

Park said he also mentioned in his meeting with Kishida his hopes for a summit to take place “at the most convenient time” for both leaders.

He added he didn't gloss over some of the history issues that have hobbled the two countries' relations in recent years.

“Minister Park said that he would make efforts to come up with a desirable solution before the court rules on liquidation of Japanese corporate assets in Korea to compensate the victims of forced labor,” said the Foreign Ministry in a statement on Tuesday.

Seoul and Tokyo's relations soured in recent years due to historical issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, such as compensation for forced laborers and wartime sexual slavery victims.

In 2018, the Korean Supreme Court made landmark rulings ordering two Japanese companies to individually compensate Korean victims of forced labor during World War II.

Tokyo says that resolving those compensation rulings is a prerequisite for improving relations with Korea.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a final verdict as early as August on whether to allow the liquidation of assets held by the Japanese companies.

Park said he also discussed the forced laborer issue with Fukushiro Nukaga, chairman of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarian Association.

After his meeting with Nukaga, Park met with Toshimitsu Motegi, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, and Yoshihide Suga, former prime minister of Japan.

While the minister’s visit to Tokyo has been widely reported in Korea, some local papers in Japan including the Asahi Shimbun reported on concerns voiced by some members of the Liberal Democratic Party about heralding the visit for fear of stoking opposition from conservative members of the party against improved ties with Korea.

Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hirokazu Matsuno, who is also the chief cabinet secretary, said in a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the Japanese government will “communicate closely” with Korea to ensure a return to healthier relations.

BY LEE YOUNG-HEE,JEONG JIN-WOO,ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]