President Yoon Suk Yeol embarks on two-day visit to Japan

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President Yoon Suk Yeol embarks on two-day visit to Japan

 
President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee disembark from Air Force One at Haneda Airport, kicking off a two-day visit to Japan Thursday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee disembark from Air Force One at Haneda Airport, kicking off a two-day visit to Japan Thursday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

 
President Yoon Suk Yeol embarked on a two-day visit to Japan Thursday for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, expected to signal a warming of bilateral ties.  
 
Hours ahead of the South Korea-Japan summit, North Korea launched an apparent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) toward the East Sea.  
 
Yoon and Kishida were expected to discuss coordination on North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, as well as ongoing bilateral issues including overcoming historical disputes related to Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea and strengthening economic ties as the two sides try to resolve an ongoing trade spat.  
 
Yoon, accompanied by first lady Kim Keon-hee, departed on the presidential jet from Seoul Air Base in Gyeonggi, and arrived in Tokyo around noon.  
 
The presidential couple is set to meet with Koreans living in Tokyo.  
 
Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are set to hold a bilateral summit followed by a joint press conference announcing the results of their talks. They were scheduled to have dinner afterward.  
 
On Friday, Yoon will meet with political figures from the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians' Union and business leaders at a Korea-Japan business roundtable attended by leaders of major Korean conglomerates.  
 
Yoon is also scheduled to give a lecture at Keio University in Tokyo before returning to Seoul later that day.  
 
The first bilateral visit in 12 years comes after Seoul announced last week its decision to pay compensation to victims of Japan's wartime forced labor through a Korea-backed public foundation, without set contributions from Japanese companies.  
 
In 2018, the Korean Supreme Court ordered two Japanese companies — Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — to individually compensate the victims of forced labor during World War II. Japan unilaterally imposed export restrictions on Korea since July 2019, leading to a period of tit-for-tat diplomacy and a further deterioration of bilateral relations.  
 
Tokyo maintains that all compensation issues related to Japan's colonial rule over Korea were resolved through the 1965 treaty normalizing relations, and the companies refused to comply.
 
Some victims and civic groups have strongly protested the third-party compensation method announced by the Korean government on March 6, saying that this plan does not include an apology, nor direct contributions, from the liable Japanese companies.
 
Yoon in turn has emphasized that the decision is one made for "future generations" and also stressed he will focus on strengthening economic cooperation between the two countries.  
 
The last Japanese prime minister to visit Seoul for a bilateral summit was Yoshihiko Noda in October 2011, and President Lee Myung-bak made a return bilateral visit to Tokyo in December 2011.  
 
President Moon Jae-in visited Japan four years ago to attend the G20 summit in Osaka in June 2019. However, he did not hold a bilateral summit with then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
 
Yoon and Kishida previously met during multilateral forums, holding bilateral talks September 2022 in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and last November in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, during Asean meetings.  
 
 

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