President Yoon Suk Yeol was set to depart for Hiroshima on Friday for a Group of Seven (G-7) summit and other meetings on the sidelines, including one with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and another with Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden.
The three-day visit comes amid a flurry of diplomacy as Yoon pushes to rebuild Seoul's relationships with Washington and Tokyo, and strengthen ties with like-minded nations that share the universal values of freedom, human rights and democracy.
Yoon will be the fourth South Korean president to attend a G-7 summit and will be accompanied by first lady Kim Keon Hee. South Korea is not a member of the bloc but was invited as one of eight guest nations, along with Australia, Brazil, Comoros, the Cook Islands, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Yoon will address an expanded session of the G-7 summit and speak on issues that include food security, health, climate change and energy. The session will also include a discussion on policies for a rules-based international order and engaging with emerging countries.
"Our selection as a G-7 invited country this year will be an opportunity to confirm our status as a global partner for defending the rules-based international order and responding to global challenges," Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo told reporters earlier.
"The trend we're seeing is a strengthening of relations with key friendly nations, such as the United States and Japan, and an expansion of the bilateral diplomacy basis, where we have built trust, to the multilateral diplomacy forum," he said.
A highlight of the trip will be a trilateral meeting among Yoon, Biden and Kishida on the margins of the G-7 summit.
The meeting is likely to take place Sunday, on the last day of Yoon's visit, and will build on the three leaders' previous summit in Cambodia last November.
It will come on the heels of two summits between Yoon and Kishida, in March and May, and Yoon's state visit to Washington in April.
"Based on the foundation of a more robust bilateral relationship between South Korea and the U.S., and between South Korea and Japan, they're expected to discuss strategic cooperation measures to upgrade South Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation one step further in the face of North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, regional supply chain instability, the energy crisis and other common challenges," Kim said.
Chief among the agenda items will be their agreement in Cambodia to share missile warning data in real time to counter growing North Korean missile threats, though no new agreement is expected to be announced.
"I think the three leaders will be briefed on progress made so far, review it and then the three countries will each announce a coordinated outcome," a presidential official said.
Separately, Yoon and Kishida will hold a bilateral summit Sunday, their third since March.
Bilateral relations have warmed significantly following Seoul's decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor without asking for contributions from Japanese firms.
Yoon will also hold bilateral summits with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Friday, and with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday.
In a symbolic move, Yoon and Kishida plan to pay a joint visit to a cenotaph for Korean victims of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing at the Peace Memorial Park.
It will be the first visit to the memorial by a South Korean president and the first joint visit by the leaders of the two countries.
Through the visit, "South Korea and Japan will resolve to prepare together for a future of peace and prosperity," Kim said.
Source: Yonhap News Agency