SEOUL: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will visit Seoul this weekend as the two countries seek to bury historical animosities and reboot their relationship in the face of a growing threat from North Korea.
The two-day trip starting Sunday will be the first official bilateral visit to Seoul by a Japanese leader for over a decade.
Kishida will meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol -- who has made resetting ties with Japan a top priority -- just weeks after the South Korean leader visited Tokyo in March.
Yoon has also just returned from a state visit to Washington, where he met President Joe Biden and signed an accord aimed at boosting the nuclear protection afforded to South Korea by the United States.
Relations between Seoul and Tokyo -- both key regional US security allies -- have long been strained over Japan's brutal 1910-45 colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula, including the imposition of forced labour and slavery.
But Yoon, who took office last year, has sought to bury the historical hatchet, earlier announcing a plan to compensate Korean victims of Japanese forced labour despite the absence of any direct involvement from Tokyo.
His endgame is improving regional security to counter perceived threats from North Korea, experts say.
"The Korea-Japan relationship is known as the weakest link in the trilateral cooperation with the United States," said Choi Eunmi, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
"So when this part is strengthened, it can eventually advance into proper South Korea-US-Japan cooperation."
Efforts to boost military cooperation come as North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, who last year declared his country an "irreversible" nuclear power, doubles down on weapons development and testing.
Pyongyang has conducted a record-breaking string of launches in 2023, including test-firing the country's first solid-fuel ballistic missile -- a technical breakthrough. - AFP
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