The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan met in Seoul yesterday to discuss strengthening their relations in the face of increasing security challenges in the region and political tumult in the host nation.
It marked the highest-level diplomatic meeting between the nations since South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived imposition of martial law last month, a move that has triggered political turmoil in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.
It also came amid heightened concerns about North Korea’s missile testing and deepening security pact with Russia, and China’s increasingly muscular attempts to assert its maritime claims in the South and East China seas.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The security situation in this region is becoming very severe, and in that strategic environment the importance of Japan-ROK [Republic of Korea] relations has not changed, and in fact has become increasingly important,” Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya said at a joint news conference with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul.
Iwaya yesterday was also due to meet Acting South Korean President Choi Sang-mok, who is standing in for the impeached Yoon.
Yoon has been holed up in his hillside villa in Seoul since parliament voted to suspend him last month over his martial law decree on Dec. 3, with investigators vowing to arrest him in a separate probe into possible insurrection.
At their news conference, Iwaya and Choi also reiterated the importance of developing three-way security cooperation with their shared ally, the US.
With the administration of US president-elect Donald Trump set to begin on Monday next week, none of the original leaders who established the security pact between the nations in 2023 — US President Joe Biden, Yoon and former Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida — would remain in power.
Yoon had made it a diplomatic priority to mend ties with Tokyo — often strained by historic issues — and pursue a joint security drive with Washington to tackle North Korea’s military threats.
In a nod to those efforts to put aside historic issues, Iwaya earlier yesterday visited the Seoul National Cemetery which honors Korean veterans, including those who died seeking independence from Japanese colonial rule, which ended in 1945.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week on a visit to South Korea expressed confidence in Seoul’s democratic process, although he said that Washington had expressed “serious concerns” over some of the actions Yoon took over the course of his martial law declaration.
Despite polls showing a majority of South Koreans disapprove of Yoon’s martial law declaration and support his impeachment, his ruling People Power Party has enjoyed somewhat of a revival.
Support for the party stood at 40.8 percent in the latest Realmeter poll released yesterday, while the main opposition Democratic Party’s support stood at 42.2 percent, within a margin of error and down from a gap of 10.8 percent last week, the poll said.
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