BUDAPEST– South Korea is willing to hold talks with Japan, including a summit, and will continue to make efforts to improve bilateral ties, a senior presidential official has said.
The official made the remarks after President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did not hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a U.N. climate summit this week in Glasgow, Scotland.
Kishida arrived in Glasgow hours before Moon left for Hungary for a state visit.
“We will look at whether there is an opportunity for talks or a meeting between leaders of Korea and Japan,” the official told reporters.
During phone talks last month, Moon told Kishida that South Korea is willing to improve ties with Japan.
Relations between South Korea and Japan have been stuck in a row over Japan’s wartime forced labor since Japan imposed export curbs against the South in 2019 in retaliation against South Korean Supreme Court rulings that Japanese firms should pay compensation to forced labor victims.
One of the key points in Moon’s European trip was to win international backing for his efforts to bring lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Last week, Moon held a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican and asked the pope to visit North Korea to bring peace on the Korean Peninsula. Francis positively reacted to Moon’s proposal, saying he would gladly visit North Korea if he received an invitation from the North.
Moon made the proposal to the pope at a time when he is seeking international support for a declaration that will formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The Moon administration hopes to use such a declaration to revive stalled peace talks with the North.
Asked whether there has been any progress in the government’s push for an end-of-war declaration, the presidential official said it is noteworthy that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has made a mention of such a declaration.
The official did not elaborate on Kim’s mentioning, but it appeared to be Kim’s remarks at a Supreme People’s Assembly in September, when he said hostile acts will remain even if an end of war is declared, because there are factors of mistrust and confrontation.
The official said Kim’s mentioning of an end-of-war declaration is meaningful and South Korea will look at an opportunity to resume talks with North Korea, based on consultations between Seoul and Washington over the matter.
On Wednesday, Moon held a summit with Hungarian President Janos Ader and agreed to upgrade relations.
At a post-summit joint press statement, Ader said the two nations shared a consensus that carbon neutrality can’t be achieved without the use of nuclear-powered energy.
The statement raised questions about whether it fits the Moon administration’s nuclear phase-out policy, but the official warned against reading too much into it.
Moon told Ader nuclear power will play its role until carbon neutrality is achieved by 2050 and no new nuclear power plants will be built, the official said.
Asked about a move to win bids to build nuclear power plants overseas, the official said South Korea and a foreign country are seeking to find a “win-win” strategy for nuclear cooperation.
South Korea also needs to maintain its nuclear technology and workforce until its nuclear power plants are in operation, the official said.
Source: Yonhap News Agency