Biden invites Japan, South Korea leaders to US for talks
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
(From left) US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 21, 2023.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
HIROSHIMA – US President Joe Biden on Sunday invited the leaders of Japan and South Korea to formal three-way talks in Washington, a senior US administration official said.
The leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit, to which host Japan invited South Korea as long-frosty ties between the neighbours thaw.
Tokyo and Seoul, both key allies of the United States, have long been at odds over issues related to Japan’s brutal colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945, including sexual slavery forced labour.
But South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have made active efforts to restore soured ties since Seoul announced a plan to compensate those affected by wartime forced labour without Tokyo’s involvement.
Mr Biden praised the pair’s “courageous work to improve their bilateral ties”, the White House said in a statement.
The three leaders also discussed “new coordination” over North Korea’s “illicit nuclear and missile threats”, the statement added.
The official said the timing for the meeting would be worked out soon, and there were no further details immediately available.
Commenting in response to Sunday’s trilateral meeting, Mr Yoon’s office said the leaders agreed to deepen their cooperation in areas such as real-time sharing of North Korean missile warning data, enhanced trilateral coordination on the Indo-Pacific strategy, and engagement with the Pacific Islands.
Earlier on Sunday, Mr Yoon and Mr Kishida made a historic visit to a memorial for Koreans killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
It was the first time that leaders of the two countries had jointly visited the memorial, and only the second time a Japanese prime minister had done so.
“This will be remembered as a courageous action by Prime Minister Kishida that paves the way for a peaceful future while expressing grief for the Korean victims of the atomic bombing,” Mr Yoon said at a bilateral meeting after the visit. AFP
