Contact Us

South Korea's Yoon to meet Japan's Kishida in Tokyo on Thursday

Reuters ASIA
Published March 14,2023
Subscribe
South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers a congratulatory speech during a commencement ceremony of the 77th-class graduates of the Korea Naval Academy in Changwon, some 301km south of Seoul, South Korea, 10 March 2023. (EPA File Photo)

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will travel to Japan for talks on Thursday with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, a South Korean official said, days after South Korea announced a plan to end a row between the U.S. allies over wartime forced labour.

Yoon's two-day visit to Japan from Thursday will be the first such trip by a South Koran leader in 12 years.

"This visit ... will be an important milestone in the improvement of relations between South Korea and Japan which has been promoted by the Yoon administration since inauguration," Yoon's national security adviser, Kim Sung-han, told a briefing on Tuesday.

South Korea announced last week that its companies would compensate victims of forced labour under Japan's colonial rule from 1910-1945, seeking to end a dispute that has undermined U.S.-led efforts to present a unified front against China and North Korea.