Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will visit Tokyo this coming weekend to meet with his Japanese counterpart on mending ties that have been frayed over shared history, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
It would be Yun’s first trip to Japan since taking office in 2013.
His two-day visit from Sunday also comes as the Northeast Asian neighbors mark next week the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties.
Yun will hold talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida shortly arriving there Sunday, according to a press release from the ministry.
The two sides plan to exchange views on “bilateral ties, the North Korean issue and other mutual issues of concern including regional and global security situations,” it said.
Yun and Kishida are certain to discuss Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women for its troops during World War II.
Last week, President Park Geun-hye told the Washington Post that Seoul and Tokyo have made “considerable progress” in negotiations over Tokyo’s formal apology and reparations.
She added the two sides are in the final stage of talks but did not give details.
Also at issue is Japan’s push to have a package of Meiji Era industrial facilities be given UNESCO world heritage status.
Many Koreans were conscripted to work as slave laborers at some of the locations during Japan’s brutal colonization of the peninsula from 1910-45.
South Korea has urged Japan to clarify the tragic historical background in UNESCO documents.
It remains unclear whether Yun’s trip will produce a breakthrough.
No specific deal is expected from his visit, an informed diplomatic source said.
“The minister’s trip to Japan is meaningful in itself,” the source said, requesting anonymity. “It is of significance in making a mood for improved bilateral ties.”
On Monday, Yun is scheduled to attend an anniversary event at the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will send a political heavyweight, Fukushiro Nukaga, as his special envoy to a ceremony to be held at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, said the source.
“Foreign Minister Kishida is also likely to attend the ceremony in which South Korea will be represented by Trade Minister Yoon Sang-jick,” the source said, adding President Park Geun-hye and Abe will exchange congratulatory messages to be read out by their envoys.
Yun initially planned to visit Japan in 2013 but canceled it in protest of visits by senior Japanese officials to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, including Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso.
South Korea views the Yasukuni Shrine as a symbol of Japan’s imperialistic past as 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined there among war dead.
It would be the first time that South Korea’s foreign minister to travel to Japan since May 2011 when a trilateral meeting also involving China’s foreign minister took place there. (Yonhap)
