To hasten efforts to get bilateral relations back on track, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to visit South Korea after hosting the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May, government sources said on Tuesday. .
The trip will follow South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s upcoming two-day visit to Japan on Thursday, during which the resumption of mutual visits between the leaders of the two countries is expected. will be confirmed. Such visits have not taken place in more than a decade.
The development comes after Seoul unveiled plans to settle its wartime wage dispute with Tokyo last week.
Bilateral ties have reached their lowest level in decades after South Korea’s top court in 2018 ordered two Japanese companies to compensate plaintiffs for alleged forced labor during Japan’s rule. ruled the Korean peninsula in the years 1910-1945. Under the new plan, a South Korean government-backed fund will pay compensation to the winning plaintiffs, rather than the Japanese companies being sued.
Kishida welcomed Seoul’s proposal, saying it would help restore “healthy” bilateral relations.
The prime minister is also planning to invite Yoon to the upcoming G7 summit in his constituency in Hiroshima, sources said.
When the two leaders meet on Thursday, Kishida may offer Yoon a fried rice, omelette, at a Western-style restaurant in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district after their summit, an aide said the prime minister said on Tuesday.
According to Japanese and South Korean diplomatic sources, the idea is based on Yoon’s desire to improve relations between the two countries. The Korean leader has “many (Japanese) dishes in his memory”, as his father was a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and he himself visited Japan many times while working. working as an assistant prosecutor in Korea. speak.
Yoon often tells those around him about his memories of cozy dinners in Tokyo and there are voices hoping to return there, the aide added.
However, within the Japanese government, opinions on the idea of omurice diplomacy are divided.
“The kitchen is a diplomatic tool,” an official from the Prime Minister’s Office said, noting that no decision had been made on the matter yet.
Meanwhile, a senior State Department official pointed out that the main issue at the Kishida-Yoon summit will be wartime labor. “This time, we should proceed normally, without doing anything delicate,” the official said.
Traditionally, after a summit with a foreign leader, a dinner is held at a venue such as the prime minister’s official residence.
A conservative member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party pointed out that there were outstanding bilateral issues, including an incident in the past in which the South Korean military pointed radar at a drone. Japan Self-Defense Forces flight.
“Omurice will be fine, but we should take advantage of what we can from the next summit,” stressed the PLD member.
Kishida is expected to make a careful decision on the matter while considering the agenda for the summit has yet to be finalized in detail and the public reaction to it. A South Korean government source said the success of omurice diplomacy “in the end depends on the intentions of the two leaders”.