South Korea is looking to mend fences with Japan, at least when it comes to cooperation on security matters, as Seoul seeks help in addressing escalating missile and nuclear threats from North Korea.
“Although several bilateral issues remain unsolved between South Korea and Japan, we intend to have the two sides put their wisdom together to reach reasonable solutions in a way that reflects the shared interests of the two countries,” South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said on Sunday at a security forum in Singapore.
The outreach for “serious dialogue” with Tokyo by newly elected President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration will include not only normalizing security relations between the countries, but also ramping up trilateral cooperation with the US in countering North Korean threats, Lee said. At the same time, he added, Yoon aims to “drastically reinforce the response capabilities of the South Korean military” to deal with Pyongyang from a position of strength.
Lee and his Japanese and US counterparts met on Saturday at the forum, called the Shangri-La Dialogue, agreeing to strengthen defense cooperation between the three countries. The talks marked the first in-person meeting between South Korean and Japanese defense chiefs since November 2019.