North, baseball may top agenda of Kishida visit to Korea next month: Report

Diplomacy

Published: 14 Feb. 2024, 18:11 Updated: 14 Feb. 2024, 18:18

North, baseball may top agenda of Kishida visit to Korea next month: Report

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, right, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shake hands during a bilateral summit in San Francisco, on Nov. 16, 2023, on the sidelines of an APEC gathering. [PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE]

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering visiting South Korea on March 20 to hold a summit with President Yoon Suk Yeol, according to a Japanese media report on Wednesday.

Citing government sources, broadcaster Fuji TV reported that Kishida seeks to discuss several issues, including North Korea, in a summit with Yoon.

The timing of the visit would fall ahead of the South Korean general election in April and could coincide with the opening of the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season in Seoul next month, according to the report.

The MLB season begins in Seoul with a two-game series between the Dodgers and the San Diego Padres on March 20 and 21 at Gocheok Sky Dome. These are the first MLB regular season games ever played in Korea.

This led to speculation that Yoon and Kishida could watch a game together, as Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani is expected to play.

Regarding the Japanese report on Kishida's possible visit, a Korean presidential official said Wednesday that "nothing is being discussed currently" without further elaborating.

According to the Fuji TV report, the Japanese side proposed a visit to Korea before the April 10 parliamentary elections to demonstrate the close relationship between the two countries and to support Yoon, who has been active in improving bilateral relations.

Kishida previously visited Seoul in May last year, returning Yoon's visit to Tokyo that March, resuming "shuttle diplomacy" between the two countries' leaders as South Korea and Japan normalized bilateral relations mired by historical disputes and a trade spat.

The two countries' leaders held seven summit meetings last year in a sign of warming relations. Seoul announced a plan to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor through a Korea-funded public foundation, and Tokyo removed export restrictions implemented in 2019.

This led to tighter trilateral security cooperation with Washington, marked by the Camp David summit in August last year.

In an interview with public broadcaster KBS last week, Yoon praised Kishida as a "leader who always keeps his agreements and promises" while discussing the breakthrough in bilateral relations with Seoul and Tokyo last year.

President Yoon also postponed a planned trip to Germany and Denmark, which had been expected to take place next week.

A source said Wednesday that the postponement of the visits came through a mutual understanding between the Korean presidential office and the governments of Germany and Denmark and took into consideration various reasons but didn't elaborate further.

The visit was not canceled, however, and is expected to take place at a later date.

This is the first time Yoon has postponed or canceled an overseas visit. He has made 16 overseas trips since he took office in May 2022.

He reportedly would have departed Sunday to make a state visit to Germany and an official trip to Denmark.

If it took place, the two-country trip would have marked Yoon's first overseas visit of the new year, with less than two months left until the April 10 general elections.

A business delegation was reportedly already in the works to take part in business events and sign memorandums of understanding and other agreements.

The presidential office reportedly postponed the trip after comprehensively reviewing various issues, including the domestic situation.

Yoon might have considered minimizing a vacuum in state affairs with less than two months left until the general elections, given North Korea's continued missile threats, a looming doctors' strike to protest a hike in the medical school enrollment quota, and allegations raised against first lady Kim Keon Hee's receiving of a luxury handbag.

The presidential office on Wednesday played down a report that a presidential staffer's private email was allegedly hacked by North Korea ahead of Yoon's visit to Britain and France in November last year.

On Wednesday, a local media outlet reported that North Korea hacked the Naver email account of the presidential staffer in charge of Yoon's overseas schedule, who accompanied the president on the trip. This could have compromised Yoon's itinerary and security during his state visit to Britain.

The presidential office told reporters that the hacking of the staffer's private email account was detected before Yoon's overseas visit and said "necessary measures" were taken to strengthen security.

It reiterated that the presidential office's security system was not compromised nor subject to a cyberattack.

The office said this was "a violation of security regulations due to the carelessness of an individual staffer who used a commercial email for work" and that it was continuously monitoring for possible cyberattacks.

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