Yoon-Kishida "Need to Resolve Issues and Improve Relations"... Notable Meeting After 2 Years 9 Months

30-Minute Informal Talks... Diplomatic Authorities Likely to Accelerate Dialogue

President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a brief South Korea-Japan summit on the 21st (local time) at a conference building in New York, USA.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] On the 21st (local time), President Yoon Suk-yeol held a brief meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and agreed on the necessity to resolve current issues and improve relations. This bilateral summit was the first Korea-Japan summit in 2 years and 9 months since then-President Moon Jae-in and Prime Minister Abe Shinzo met in Chengdu, China, in December 2019.

The Presidential Office stated in the afternoon, "President Yoon held a brief meeting with Prime Minister Kishida from 12:23 PM for 30 minutes at a conference building near the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York, USA."

The Presidential Office added, "The two leaders agreed to cooperate and stand in solidarity with the international community to uphold universal values shared by both countries, such as liberal democracy, human rights, and the rule of law." They also "shared serious concerns about North Korea's nuclear program, including recent legislation on nuclear armament and the possibility of a seventh nuclear test, and agreed to closely cooperate with the international community to respond."

In particular, the two leaders agreed on the necessity to resolve current issues to improve bilateral relations and instructed their diplomatic authorities to accelerate dialogue while continuing consultations. Since the two leaders confirmed their consensus on the need to improve bilateral relations, there is a possibility of follow-up measures such as regularizing consultation channels between diplomatic working-level officials in the future.

However, issues related to past history, such as compensation for forced labor, remain difficult to resolve in the short term. Although the foreign ministers of Korea and Japan exchanged views on this issue during a meeting in New York on the 19th, it is reported that the two leaders did not reach the stage of discussing it concretely.