Seoul: Leaders of S. Korea, Japan to hold summit next week

South Korean and Japanese leaders will hold a summit next week

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The leaders of South Korea and Japan will hold a summit next week, Seoul officials said Thursday, days after South Korea announced a major step toward resolving strained bilateral ties stemming from Tokyo’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

President Yoon Suk Yeol is to visit Japan from March 16-17 at the invitation of the Japanese government. During this two-day trip, Yoon will hold a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Yoon’s office said in a statement.

The announcement came three days after South Korea said it would raise local funds to compensate Koreans who performed forced labor during Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule. The South Korean plan doesn’t require Japanese companies to contribute to the reparations.

Bilateral ties suffered a major setback after South Korea’s top court in 2018 ordered two Japanese companies to compensate some of their former Korean employees for forced labor during the colonial rule. The companies and the Japanese government have refused to comply with the rulings and have insisted all compensation issues were settled by a bilateral 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two countries and was accompanied by hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul.

The fraught Seoul-Tokyo ties complicated American efforts to reinforce its three-way security cooperation in the face of rising Chinese influence in the region and North Korean nuclear threats.

Yoon’s office said itinerary details for the visit next week are still under discussion with Japan. Its statement said South Korea hopes the two countries will move beyond the past and expand their ties and exchanges.

In September, Yoon and Kishida held the first summit between the two countries in nearly three years on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. During that summit, the two agreed to accelerate efforts to mend their frayed ties.