The leaders of South Korea and Japan have held their first formal bilateral talks since they took office.
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On Monday, Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye agreed to make an effort to settle the issue through dialogue at an early date, according to Park’s office.
Yet many voiced dissatisfaction with the meeting’s lack of progress on the wartime “comfort women” issue.
Japan has apologised in the past for the “pain and suffering” of the women, but South Korea wants a stronger apology and compensation for victims.
“Trilateral cooperation on such topics as conventional security issues and non-conventional security issues like climate change, environmental issues, nuclear safety and anti-terrorism would lead to, or at least be conducive to, turning negative perceptions of others into favorable ones”, said Kim Han-know, assistant professor at the Department of Asian and Pacific Studies at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
“It’s the 50th anniversary of the normalization of ties (Japan-South Korea) this year”, he said. After the trilateral summit, Li held a separate bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
President Park said it was important that surviving “comfort women” – who are now in their 80s and 90s – were satisfied with how the issue is resolved.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system on the Korean peninsula would be determined through the security alliance that binds the United States, South Korea and Japan. And at least publicly neither side expressed any willingness to compromise on this issue.
Hosaka Yuji is a political science professor at Seoul’s Sejong University.
“We have agreed to accelerate talks to reach an agreement as soon as possible”, Abe said. “I can only applaud this meeting and I think it may be more than a good first step”, Thomas Hubbard, who was the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from 2001 to 2004, told CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box” on Monday. He suggested the two counties cooperate about free navigation.
China has similarly bitter memories of Japanese wartime aggression and is also at odds with Tokyo over sovereignty of an island chain in the East China Sea. In fact, Abe has been criticised for his flip-flop on the issue.
Meanwhile, Japanese business leaders visiting Beijing also welcomed the Abe-Park summit.
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and his South Korean counterpart vowed zero tolerance Monday for any North Korean provocations and agreed to strengthen combined defenses against the myriad threats posed by Pyongyang.
Both defense chiefs voiced support for freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of maritime disputes but Carter very pointedly called upon China to halt any further dredging or militarization in the South China Sea.
However, South Korea has shown interest in becoming a member. Moreover, the three will continue to work towards a common free trade agreement and will pursue their goal to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
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Aside from them, the other parties to the talks, which were suspended in 2009, are the US and Russian Federation. Kathleen Struck was the editor. The two countries will discuss cooperation on investing in third-party countries as well, which could potentially see South Korea play a joint role in a few of the investments being made along the planned “belt and road”, whether in Southeast or Central Asia. Officially, his mission is meant to help push the next phase of America’s foreign policy “rebalance” to the strategically important region.
