South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Tokyo for a historic visit

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in Tokyo, Japan, Thursday, March 16, 2023. AP - Kiyoshi Ota

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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol arrived in Tokyo on Thursday, March 16, for the first visit by a South Korean head of state to Japan in twelve years. Hours after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile launch that landed in the Sea of Japan. The South Korean president and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are seeking to present a united front against North Korea and China, while calming their historical disputes.

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From our correspondent in Tokyo, Frédéric Charles

Japan knows that 60% of South Koreans do not approve of President Yoon Suk-yeol's visit to Tokyo, because of historical disputes over Japan's colonization of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945. Japan appreciates all the more this outstretched hand of a South Korean president determined to end, he says, the "vicious circle of mutual hostility" between two neighbors so close in geography, but so distant from each other in history.

What brings them together today is the threat of North Korea, which is now ready to use nuclear weapons as a preventive measure. Tensions with China are also prompting them to strengthen their security cooperation. They will exchange real-time information on North Korean missile launches. The United States had long urged its two largest Asian allies to end its contentious relationship.

Japan will resume its "shuttle diplomacy" with South Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will travel to Seoul. Their companies will create a private fund to strengthen the security of their supply chains. Japan will lift its export restrictions on chemicals needed to manufacture semiconductors to South Korea.

The Japanese prime minister is expected to invite the South Korean president to the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May. Last year, the two heads of state and government attended the NATO summit in Madrid as "Asian partners".

► READ ALSO: South Korea and Japan aim for rapprochement, while North Korea threatens

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Read on on the same topics:

  • South Korea
  • Japan
  • Diplomacy
  • Yoon Suk-yeol
  • History
  • North Korea
  • Fumio Kishida