South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday South Korea and Japan are partners who share universal values and have common interests, as he spoke at a ceremony to commemorate the end of Japanese colonial rule 78 years ago.
Yoon also reiterated the importance of trilateral security cooperation with Japan and the United States amid continued nuclear and missile threats from North Korea, in the speech delivered on Liberation Day.
"As partners that cooperate on security and the economy, South Korea and Japan will be able to jointly contribute to peace and prosperity across the globe while collaborating and exchanging in a future-oriented manner," Yoon said at the ceremony in Seoul.
After becoming president in May 2022, Yoon has been taking steps to improve ties with Japan, such as by establishing a government-backed compensation fund for former wartime laborers who had sued Japanese companies, which was announced in early March.
Under the administration of Yoon's predecessor, Moon Jae In, Japan-South Korea relations deteriorated to the lowest point in decades due largely to the dispute over the wartime labor compensation issue.
But Yoon has been working to restore relations with Japan, including by traveling to Tokyo in mid-March for the first South Korean presidential visit to Japan in four years. In May, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida went to Seoul to meet Yoon, as part of the resumed reciprocal leaders' visits.
Yoon said in his speech on Tuesday that a summit with Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden scheduled for later this week at Camp David near Washington "will set a new milestone in trilateral cooperation contributing to peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific region."
While emphasizing the three countries' deterrence capabilities against North Korean provocations, Yoon said his government will also continue to work with the international community to encourage Pyongyang to restart dialogue.
