Japan to support Busan's bid for World Expo 2030: Japanese newspaper

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, right, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in San Francisco on Nov. 16. [JOONGANG PHOTO]

Japan will support Korea’s bid to host World Expo 2030 in Busan, according to a Sunday report in the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan's leading daily newspapers.

According to the report, Tokyo decided to side with Seoul out of consideration for Yoon Suk Yeol's efforts to improve Korea's ties with Japan, despite initial calls within the Japanese government to support Saudi Arabia and strengthen relations with the Middle East, a major source of the country's oil imports.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reportedly informally delivered his government's intent to support Korea’s bid to host the 2030 Expo in Busan to Yoon during a September bilateral summit in New Delhi.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Japan might reiterate its support for Korea at a trilateral foreign ministerial meeting between South Korea, China and Japan in Busan on Sunday.

The report added that the Japanese government plans to share with Korea the knowledge and lessons learned from preparing and hosting the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo.

Relations between Korea and Japan remained frosty until a bilateral summit in March, where Yoon and Kishida began a rapprochement between their two nations.

Since the summit, the relationship between the two Northeast Asian neighbors has normalized, with public antipathy in both countries softening. With relations warming, Yoon and Kishida have met seven times this year.

The final vote to decide the host city will take place Tuesday in Paris at the 173rd General Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions. A total of 182 member states will vote anonymously.

Busan is competing against Saudi Arabia's Riyadh and Italy's Rome.

BY HYEON YE-SEUL, LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]