Ishiba, Yoon agree on mutual visits, cooperation

VIENTIANE — Japan's new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday agreed to engage in reciprocal top-level visits and further their cooperation in areas ranging from security to economy during their first in-person bilateral summit.

Meeting on the sidelines of ASEAN meetings in Laos, Ishiba pledged efforts to make the improving bilateral relationship "irreversible," building on progress seen between his predecessor Fumio Kishida and Yoon following years of friction over wartime compensation and other disputes.

"Using the 'shuttle diplomacy,' I would like to closely cooperate with President Yoon," Ishiba said at the outset of the meeting, which took place just over a week after he took office.

Yoon also expressed eagerness to work with Ishiba to show that ties have "dramatically improved," with the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties approaching next year.

Reciprocal visits by the two countries' leaders, a practice based on an agreement dating back to 2004, had stalled from 2011 amid disputes stemming from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

After sinking to their lowest level in decades, however, relations between Tokyo and Seoul have improved significantly under Yoon, who took office in 2022 and proposed a solution regarding compensation demands from South Koreans over what they claim was wartime forced labor.

Kishida, who served as prime minister for about three years from October 2021, and Yoon agreed in 2023 to restart mutual visits and the then Japanese leader made the first visit to South Korea in later in the year.

Ishiba and Yoon, meanwhile, also agreed on promoting trilateral cooperation with their common security ally, the United States, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The three-way cooperation has also been rapidly evolving in the face of North Korea's repeated ballistic missile tests and China's rise. The three countries held the first standalone trilateral summit at the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David in August last year and agreed to hold annual trilateral meetings between the leaders.

Ishiba and Yoon shared "serious concerns" over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and the progress in its military cooperation with Russia, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said, as the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues since February 2022.

Ishiba is making his first overseas trip since becoming prime minister on Oct. 1 to participate in meetings involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

© KYODO