HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) – Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pray together Sunday at a memorial for Korean victims of the 1945 atomic bomb in Hiroshima on the sidelines of the G7 summit as they return to work Continue to repair relations repeatedly soured by disputes stemming from Japan’s brutal wartime acts.
Yoon visited Hiroshima with the leaders of the seven other invited countries and the G7 for “outreach” sessions on the last of the summit’s three days.
Kishida and Yoon held talks after leaving Flowers, and later on Sunday US President Joe Biden discussed further security cooperation, including ways to strengthen the US nuclear deterrent for their two main allies in the region.
Japan’s foreign ministry said the three leaders discussed further coordination, including sharing real-time data to warn of North Korean missiles in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats. They also discussed economic security and rapprochement with Pacific island nations, where China is strengthening its influence.
A US official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the two leaders accepted Biden’s invitation to visit Washington for the trilateral meeting.
Yoon and Kishida, accompanied by their wives, visited the memorial, where they laid bouquets of white flowers and bowed their heads in tribute to the thousands of Koreans killed in the attack 78 years ago.
Yoon is the first South Korean ruler to visit the memorial, marking a thaw in relations.
At the start of his talks with Kishida, Yoon praised the Japanese prime minister for his “sincere determination” to improve relations. This is the third meeting between the two in two months after Yun’s visit to Tokyo last March. He said he looked forward to expanding cooperation not only between the two sides, but also on global issues “based on our deep ties of trust”.
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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
