SEOUL – Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu Back agreed Monday in Seoul to reinvigorate reciprocal visits and regular meetings, as the two neighbors pursue stable ties regardless of changes in their governments and in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
Nakatani, the first Japanese defense minister to visit South Korea in a decade, also affirmed with Ahn the importance of bilateral security cooperation as well as trilateral cooperation with the United States.
“The ministers concurred that it is important to steadily advance Korea-Japan and Korea-U.S.-Japan defense cooperation in the rapidly changing security environment, and shared the need to develop bilateral defense ties in a future-oriented manner,” the two ministers said in a joint press release.
In particular, the two countries will explore the potential for “mutually beneficial and forward-looking cooperation in advanced science and technology fields such as artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and space,” the press release said.
Their meeting came a day after Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced his resignation amid mounting pressure to take responsibility for the ruling coalition’s loss of its majority in July’s upper house election.
According to the press release, Nakatani and Ahn affirmed their “unwavering commitment” to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and agreed to continue trilateral cooperation also involving the United States in response to North Korea’s weapons development program.
They also emphasized the need to jointly address the deepening military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, it said.
Nakatani’s visit to Seoul came after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung traveled to Japan for the first time since his inauguration in June, showcasing ongoing progress in repairing bilateral ties that had been largely strained in the past over wartime history and other issues.
Lee’s trip to Japan was part of efforts to maintain close communication through regular reciprocal trips by the leaders. After a hiatus when ties cooled, the practice resumed under the predecessors of Ishiba and Lee.
Nakatani and Ahn welcomed that a visit by a Japanese defense minister to South Korea, the first since 2015, was realized during the 60th anniversary year of the normalization of Japan-South Korea relations in 1965.
Ahn took up the post in July and the Seoul meeting was his first in-person talks with Nakatani. The two held a videoconference in early August.
Regarding security, the two countries have been working to move past their dispute over an incident in 2018, when Japan alleged that a South Korean destroyer locked its fire-control radar on a Self-Defense Forces patrol plane in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
During talks between their defense ministers in June 2024, Japan and South Korea agreed to implement measures to prevent radar lock-on incidents.
Nakatani is scheduled to attend the Seoul Defense Dialogue, an annual multilateral security forum, on Tuesday before returning to Japan the following day.
AloJapan.com