South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has landed in Tokyo for a two-day summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
This is the first high-level summit between the two leaders of neighboring countries in 12 years, when in December 2011 then-President Lee Myung Bak met Premier Yoshihiko Noda in Kyoto.
Yoon, who took office in May last year, has been trying to improve ties with Japan while strengthening military cooperation with the United States.
Central to the discussions will be the security and stability of the Asia Pacific region.
Shortly before Yoon's departure, North Korea launched an ICBM into the Sea of Japan, carrying out a
Yoon's mission also matured less than two weeks after Seoul's announcement on the solution to reparations to South Koreans forced into forced labor on behalf of Japanese companies during Tokyo's colonial rule of the peninsula from 1910 to 1945. According to the plan , a public foundation affiliated to the Interior Ministry will compensate the victims with donations from national companies, a solution which is partly criticized for the non-participation of Japanese companies which, however, will always be able to contribute to the financing with voluntary contributions.
Yoon said the decision was "a purposeful determination to move forward a future-oriented relationship between South Korea and Japan," a reference to the various historical disputes that have periodically plagued relations between the two countries between the persistent resentment of South Koreans.
Yoon stressed the importance of improving bilateral relations to effectively counter the threat of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, including through trilateral cooperation with the United States, also noting that improved relations will help increase business exchanges of the two countries and will ultimately benefit their economies.
"This visit is meant to signal that hitherto tense relations between South Korea and Japan have seriously entered the normalization phase," National Security Advisor Kim Sung-han said on Tuesday at a press conference to introduce the mission.
