Japan and South Korea vowed to “deepen communication” in the future during a rare meeting on Saturday, diplomatic sources said, following a collapse in relations between the neighbors.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida held “candid” talks with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se on the eve of a regional security dialogue in Myanmar’s capital, a Japanese diplomatic source said.
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy press secretary Koichi Mizushima said that the two nations had discussed “the future direction of the Japan and Korea relationship.”
“They agreed on the importance to continue and deepen communication,” Mizushima told reporters, adding that future talks would be at various levels, including the foreign ministers.
“Although there are some difficult issues between the two countries, the good relationship between Japan and [South] Korea is for the mutual benefit not only for both countries, but also good for the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.
The last official meeting between the two foreign ministers was in September last year in New York.
A summit between the leaders of the two nations in March failed to dampen the rancor between the neighbors, which stems from disputes related to Japan’s 1910 to 1945 rule over the Korean Peninsula. They include a territorial row over a tiny batch of rocky islets and Seoul’s demands for further reparations for Korean women forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese World War II military brothels.
Japan has long maintained that all issues relating to the colonial period were settled under a 1965 bilateral treaty that normalized diplomatic ties with South Korea.
However, in a sign of the depth of the antipathy, on Tuesday the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement branding Japan’s claim to the islands as “ludicrous” and “unacceptable.”
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
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