Yoon, Japan’s Kishida to hold joint press briefing after summit

President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will hold a joint press briefing following their summit in Tokyo this week, a presidential official said Wednesday.

Yoon and Kishida are set to meet Thursday on the first day of the South Korean president’s two-day visit to Japan. The trip will come after Seoul announced its decision to compensate Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor on its own without the participation of Japanese companies.

The two leaders plan to each announce the results of their talks at the press briefing, but there will be no joint statement on the summit, the presidential official told reporters.

The official also denied reports that the leaders plan to have dinner twice on Thursday, saying the Japanese government appears to be thinking about providing an opportunity and space for the leaders to have additional time for candid talks following their official dinner with their wives.

Yoon and Kishida are expected to seek ways to mend bilateral ties, but North Korea and economic cooperation are also expected to top the agenda of the upcoming summit.

The presidential office said it aims to take the summit as an opportunity to normalize bilateral economic cooperation.

“The government will swiftly restore the channel for economic cooperation at the ministerial level, such as finance, trade, science and technology, that had been suspended,” Choi Sang-mok, senior presidential secretary for economic affairs, said in a press briefing.

Choi stressed that improving economic ties between the two countries is not a matter of choice but a requirement in the wake of global supply chain issues.

On whether the move would affect Tokyo’s export curbs against Seoul and its removal of South Korea from a “white list” of favored trade partners, Choi said talks are under way to take situations back to July 2019, when the restrictions were introduced.