South Korean President Park Geun Hye Expresses Willingness To Host Bilateral Meeting With Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe In Seoul
South Korean President Park Geun Hye reveals on Thursday that she is willing to have a one-on-one meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in November.
Park, who was in Washington last week to meet US President Barrack Obama, says a trilateral meeting between South Korea, Japan and China next month will allow her to meet the Japanese prime minister for the first time.
"Two weeks from now, we plan to host in Seoul a South Korea-Japan-China summit, which has been suspended for three and a half years," Park reveals, as noted by Yonhap News Agency on Friday. "I think that could be an opportunity to hold summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe."
The South Korean president revealed an inkling that the issue of comfort women will be tackled if she and Abe will meet next month.
"I think it's fair to say that there could be a meaningful summit if progress is made on the issue. We don't really have much time left in terms of dealing with this issue."
She goes on, "But in order for such a meeting to be really significant, I think it's important that the two countries be able to move towards a more future-oriented change in our relationship ... a meeting that does lead to progress on this (comfort women) issue can be characterized as a meaningful meeting."
Meanwhile, The New York Times forecasted on the same day that the Japanese prime minister reportedly says he will be heading to South Korea where they will do "Japan-China and Japan-South Korea (meetings)," as per Mr. Kawamura who spoke to the reporters.
On the other hand, Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani is set to visit South Korea on Tuesday. The visit will make him the first Japanese defense minister to visit the country in almost five years, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Nakatani is scheduled to meet his counterpart Han Min Koo on the day of his arrival in South Korea. In addition, he will also visit "one of the world's most militarized borders."
"South Korea is one of our most important neighboring countries and in terms of geopolitics it is very important to our security," Nakatani says in a dispatch. "As U.S. allies we share many strategic interests and close cooperation between us in terms of security would be very meaningful for the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific."
