Defense chiefs of S. Korea, Japan set for first bilateral talks in nearly 4 years

Defense 08:57 June 04, 2023

By Chae Yun-hwan

SINGAPORE, June 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and Japan are set to hold their first bilateral defense ministerial talks in nearly four years in Singapore on Sunday, amid joint efforts to bolster security cooperation to counter North Korea's evolving military threats.

Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and his Japanese counterpart, Yasukazu Hamada, will meet on the margins of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, a day after they held trilateral talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on a range of issues, including trilateral cooperation against the North's security challenge.

Seoul and Tokyo last held two-way defense ministerial talks in November 2019.

While relations have been strained over historical spats stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea, they have recently taken a turn for the better after Seoul's decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor on its own without asking for contributions from Japanese firms.

During the talks, the two sides are expected to discuss unresolved issues, such as the dispute over Japanese maritime patrol aircraft's unusually low-altitude flybys over South Korean warships in December 2018 and January 2019.

Seoul has taken issue with what it has decried as a "menacing" flight by a Japanese aircraft in December 2018, while Tokyo has accused the South Korean vessel of having locked its fire-control radar on the plane.

"Various security issues will be discussed for the development of future-oriented ties between South Korea and Japan," a Seoul official told reporters on condition of anonymity.