SEOUL (BLOOMBERG) - South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Japan is a partner as the two countries face "common threats," offering to improve ties between the allies of the US whose help the Biden administration has sought in putting up a united front against the likes of China, Russia and North Korea.
Mr Yoon said he wants to "swiftly and properly improve" relations with Tokyo stemming from historical disputes.
The comments were in a speech on Monday (Aug 15) to mark Japan's World War II surrender and the end of its 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.
"When Korea-Japan relations move toward a common future and when the mission of our times align, based on our shared universal values, it will also help us solve the historical problems that exist between our two countries," Mr Yoon said in the Liberation Day speech.
Last month, the two countries' foreign ministers met in Tokyo and said they would seek an early resolution to the issue of compensation for Koreans conscripted during the colonial period to work in factories and mines that helped power Japan's Imperial Army.
Ties between the neighbours fell to new depths under Mr Yoon's predecessor Moon Jae-in over a series of court decisions awarding compensation to the former workers.
Japan sees the decisions as unlawful and the issue as "settled completely and finally" under a 1965 agreement that established diplomatic ties and was accompanied by US$500 million (S$685 million) in aid and loans.
A plan being floated by Yoon for a joint fund between the governments stands little chance of support in Japan, still angry after a separate fund for women trafficked into Imperial Army brothels was scuttled by Mr Moon.
South Korea's foreign ministry submitted an argument to the Supreme Court last month, asking for a delay of the verdict on liquidising assets of a Japanese company to pay compensation for the conscripted workers. The ministry added it was making various diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue.
Mr Yoon is unlikely to get money for any joint fund, or for South Korea to pay on its own, from a parliament where Mr Moon's Democratic Party holds a majority and has demanded Japan show what it sees as proper contrition.
Mr Yoon, whose support rate has fallen sharply, risks further alienating the South Korean public by moves seen as cozying up to long-time rival Japan.
Mr Yoon, a conservative who took power in May, has advocated a tougher line with China and North Korea - bringing his country's security policies in greater alignment with those of the US and Japan.
In his Liberation Day speech, he called on North Korea to make "genuine and substantive process for denuclearisation," offering food, energy and infrastructure aid if it does.
Mr Yoon's government has said the possible operation of a American-made missile shield that raised the ire of China was "not negotiable", pushing back at Beijing's efforts to hold him to Mr Moon's policy to freeze its deployment.
Decisions on the deployment of Lockheed Martin's Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence system was a matter of South Korea's self-defence, a senior presidential official told reporters last week in Seoul. The Yoon administration is accelerating efforts to "normalise" the operation of the US base in the southern city of Seongju that deployed the Thaad system, the official said.
Meanwhile in Japan, a cabinet minister and a top official of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party visited Yasukuni Shrine on Monday, according to media reports. Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi and LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda paid their respects at the site, where 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined along with other war dead. The shrine is seen by victims of Japan's imperial army as a symbol of the country's past militarism.
Trade and industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura visited Yasukuni on Saturday, Kyodo reported, making him the first sitting cabinet member to make such a visit since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government took power in October.
