Foreign Ministers of South Korea and Japan held first bilateral meeting after 4-Year and 7-Month

“NEWSIS”, a South Korean media, reported that South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met on July 18th with his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi. As stated by foreign ministers on the same day’s press conference in Japan, this is the first bilateral meeting of the foreign ministers since South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in May and it is also the first meeting in 4 years and 7 months, as the previous meeting was held in Dec. 2017.
Park and Hayashi exchanged their views on some current disputes, which includes a settlement involving South Korea’s top court rulings of compensation to some colonial-era labourers against Japanese firms, the Japan export trade restrictions to South Korea, and the agreement to protect military intelligence information for two countries. Both parties also agreed to “resolutely respond to further North Korea provocations, while also keeping the door open for dialog and promoting a flexible and open diplomatic approach,” to further strengthen the cooperative South Korea-Japan and South Korea-U.S. relationship.

On July 19th, Park offered his condolences for the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was fatally shot in assassination. In the afternoon, Park met in person with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.