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South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha (center) clasps hands with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono at their meeting during the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa met with new Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono for the first time, in Manila on Aug. 7. The two top diplomats reportedly ended the meeting without reconciling the two countries’ conflict over the agreement reached on Dec. 28, 2015, about the comfort women issue.

Kang and Kono met at the Philippine International Convention Center, the site of the 24th ASEAN Regional Forum, at 7:45 pm. They began their meeting in a congenial mood, with Kang congratulating Kono on his appointment as foreign minister. Kono, who was named foreign minister four days before, made his debut at the forum. He is the son of Yohei Kono, who made the Kono Statement in 1993 while serving as Chief Cabinet Secretary. The Kono Statement acknowledged that the Japanese military was involved in mobilizing the comfort women and that their mobilization was compulsory in nature.

The part of the two top diplomats’ meeting that attracted the most attention was their discussion of the Dec. 28 agreement. Once again, South Korea and Japan were reportedly unable to narrow their differences on this issue. Kono reiterated the need for South Korea to faithfully implement the Dec. 28 agreement, while Kang observed that the agreement is emotionally unacceptable to the South Korean public. Aside from this issue, the two diplomats reportedly agreed on the need to improve relations and promised to work closely together to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.

At 12:10 pm on the same day, Kang met with Kono and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a hotel in downtown Manila for a luncheon and a trilateral ministerial meeting that Kang chaired. During the meeting, which lasted for more than 40 minutes, the three top diplomats agreed that North Korea’s two test launches of the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile last month demonstrated that the North had made considerable progress in enhancing its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities. The diplomats also discussed ways for the three countries to work together to prevent North Korea from carrying out additional provocations and to orchestrate its denuclearization, according to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry. The three diplomats “reconfirmed that it is the firm goal of the three countries to achieve through peaceful means the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea and exchanged big-picture ideas about how to lead North Korea down the path toward denuclearization,” the Foreign Ministry reported.

During the meeting, the three diplomats also agreed both to continue toughening sanctions against North Korea to pressure it into changing its attitude and to maintain strategic communications aimed at the close trilateral cooperation and coordination. The three diplomats reportedly expressed their agreement that China needs to play a proactive role in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue. This was the first meeting of the three countries’ top diplomats since Kang and Kono took office.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter in Manila

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