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South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha shakes hands with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono prior to their meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Seoul on Apr. 11.

South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono agreed in bilateral foreign minister talks on Apr. 11 that the period ahead of scheduled inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits represents a “historic opportunity” and “shared the common goal of achieving [North Korea’s denuclearization] and establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

Kono’s visit was the first to South Korea by a Japanese Foreign Minister in the two years and four months since then-minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Dec. 2015 to announce an agreement between the two governments on the Japanese military comfort women issue.

In their roughly hour-long talks at the Central Government Complex on Seoul’s Sejong Road that morning, the two ministers “agreed that this period leading up to the inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits is an extremely crucial moment, a watershed and a historic opportunity,” a senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs official who attended the meeting reported.

The official also quoted Kono as saying that sanctions and pressure against Pyongyang “must continue until there is concrete [denuclearization] action from North Korea” and stressing the need for “the complete resolution to the North Korean nuclear and missile issue represented by CVID [complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement].” At the same time, Kono emphasized that there had been “no change in the Japanese government’s basic position calling for a comprehensive resolution to numerous issues, including the nuclear and missile issues and abductee issue,” asking that this position be “expressed to the North during the inter-Korean summit.”

In response, Kang stressed that Seoul remained “unchanged in its position in terms of maintaining sanctions and pressure on the North until there is substantive progress with denuclearization.”

“We are preparing for the inter-Korean summit with a clear understanding at the ministerial level that inter-Korean relations cannot proceed separately from denuclearization,” she added.

On Japan’s request to relay its message to Pyongyang, Kang replied in more general terms that the “abductee and divided family issues are both humanitarian concerns” and that Seoul was “well aware of the importance of these humanitarian issues, and has been working and will continue to work to resolve humanitarian issues,” senior ministry representatives stated. The two ministers also agreed on sharing sufficient information and beefing up bilateral cooperation and cooperation with the US in the upcoming Apr. 27 inter-Korean summit and Apr. 17 US-Japan summit processes.

Prior to his meeting with Kang, Kono reportedly met earlier in the day with National Intelligence Service director Suh Hoon to discuss preparations for the inter-Korean summit.

In addition to North Korea and nuclear-related issues, the two ministers agreed the same day to cooperation on developing a “future-oriented relationship” between the two sides, ministry representatives said. In particular, they formed plans to begin ministerial-level discussions on a blueprint for advancing bilateral relations for the 20th anniversary of the “New Japan-Republic of Korea Partnership towards the Twenty-First Century” joint declaration made in 1998 by then-President Kim Dae-jung and Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

On the matter of the Japanese military comfort women and other history-related issues, Kono stressed the importance of “executing the terms of the South Korea-Japan comfort women agreement” while Kang expressed the position of the South Korean administration, a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated. The Moon Jae-in administration previously said it does not plan to demand renegotiation of the agreement officially reached between the two sides in 2015, but maintained that the comfort women issue was not resolved by the agreement.

Kono reportedly expressed objections to South Korean National Assembly members’ plans to visit Dokdo and voiced Tokyo’s position on a statue of a conscripted laborer to be raised in front of the consulate general in Busan.

At around 2:20 pm the same day, Kono and Japanese ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine visited Seoul National Cemetery to pay their respects. It was the first visit to the cemetery by a Japanese Foreign Minister in the 14 years since Nobudaka Mura visited in 2004.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

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