South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol plans to visit a memorial altar to be set up by the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to pay his respects to recently assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to his presidential aides Sunday.
Yoon has no plan to attend a formal memorial service for Abe in Japan, they said without revealing where the altar will be set up, apparently for security reasons.
He is instead sending a delegation led by Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to the ceremony expected to be held after a family funeral slated for Monday, an official at the presidential office told reporters.
The other members of the delegation will include Chung Jin-suk, a deputy National Assembly speaker, and some other lawmakers, added the official who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity.
Yoon, who took office in May, has pledged efforts to improve Seoul-Tokyo relations long strained due primarily to disputes over how to compensate the victims of Japan’s atrocities during its brutal colonization of Korea from 1910-45.
Source: Yonhap News Agency