President Lee to hold summit with Japan’s Ishiba in Tokyo ahead of U.S. trip

Korean President Lee Jae Myung, right, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba shake hands ahead of bilateral talks on the margins of the Group of Seven, or G7, summit in Canada on June 17. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

President Lee Jae Myung is scheduled to make a trip to Tokyo later this month for a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba as part of the two countries’ shuttle diplomacy efforts, ahead of a trip to the United States, his office announced Wednesday.
 
Lee is scheduled to visit Japan on Aug. 22 and 23, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a press briefing at the Yongsan presidential office in Seoul, before embarking on a three-day visit to the United States for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump on Aug. 25. The two leaders will hold summit talks and attend a dinner event together.
 
It is rare for a Korean president to visit Japan before the United States, which indicates Lee’s strong will to restore “shuttle diplomacy” with Tokyo following his first meeting with Ishiba two months ago.
 
Kang said in the briefing that the visit to Japan will be an opportunity for the two countries to “solidify the foundation for future-oriented cooperation.” She added that it will also be a chance for “candid discussions” on ways to strengthen bilateral ties as well as trilateral cooperation between South Korea, the United States and Japan, as well as regional peace and stability and global issues.
 
Lee and Ishiba held their first bilateral meeting on the margins of the Group of 7 summit in Canada on June 17, where the two leaders agreed to promptly resume shuttle diplomacy between the two countries. The top-level exchanges were resumed by the two leaders’ predecessors in 2023 after a period of strained bilateral relations due to disputes over historical issues such as compensation for wartime forced laborers and a trade spat, paving the way for smoother trilateral cooperation with the United States.
 
Kang expressed hopes that Lee’s visit will “further deepen the personal bond and trust between the two leaders.”
 

Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung announces that Korean President Lee Jae Myung will make a trip to Japan later this month in a press briefing at the Yongsan presidential office in central Seoul on Aug. 13. [NEWS1]

While the two countries struggle to overcome historical issues related to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea, the Lee administration has stressed that the two countries are “inseparable,” indicating that it will seek ways to cooperate with Tokyo, such as trade, while separately dealing with such disputes in a two-track approach.
 
The two countries commemorate the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties this year. Korea marks the 80th anniversary of liberation from Japanese colonial rule on Friday, and the president usually gives a message about Korea-Japan relations during a Liberation Day address.
 
In their summit, Lee and Ishiba are likely to discuss pressing bilateral issues, as well as ways to strengthen coordination on North Korea. The Lee administration has also been pursuing a peace policy on the Korean Peninsula, which means support from countries like the United States and Japan is essential.
 
Seoul and Tokyo, in turn, share intelligence on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles through a bilateral military intel-sharing pact, the General Security of Military Information Agreement.
 
On Monday, Japanese Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, seen as a potential candidate to succeed Ishiba, visited Korea to attend APEC-related ministerial meetings and hold talks with Korean Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Song Mi-ryung and Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun.
 
Japan has pushed for Korea to lift restrictions on Japanese seafood imports from eight prefectures imposed after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, and Koizumi repeated this request to Cho during his visit. Japan began discharging treated wastewater into the ocean in August 2023 as part of the decommissioning process for the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
 
There are also reports that the South Korean government is considering joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multinational FTA led by Japan, as the two countries cope with the changing trade environment.
 
The Japanese Foreign Ministry also announced Wednesday that Lee and first lady Kim Hea Kyung will visit Japan, noting that the two countries are “important neighbors who must cooperate as partners on various issues in the international community.”
 
It added that under the “current strategic environment,” the importance of bilateral relations and trilateral cooperation with the United States is growing.

BY SARAH KIM [[email protected]]