YOON’S DELEGATION MEETS WITH JAPANESE PM

[Anchor Lead]

President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol’s policy delegation team to Japan met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday, the third day of their visit. Both sides agreed on the need to improve bilateral relations but Kishida called for the resolution of pending issues such as wartime forced labor.

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President-elect Yoon’s policy delegation sent to Japan arrives at the prime minister’s office. A meeting with Fumio Kishida which was being arranged up until a day ago has been realized. During the session that lasted around 25 minutes, the two sides saw eye to eye that efforts must be exerted to advance future-oriented ties and pursue shared interests.

[Soundbite] Chung Jin-suk(Chief Delegate(Nat’l Assembly Deputy Speaker)) : "We stressed the need to restore trust and expand personnel exchanges suspended by the pandemic, to which Kishida also expressed support."

The Japanese leader said that strategic coordination between South Korea, Japan and the U.S. has never been more necessary than the current times, and improving Seoul-Tokyo relations cannot wait any further. But the PM quickly added that pending issues such as wartime forced labor and sex slavery must be resolved first.

[Soundbite] Fumio Kishida(Japan’s Prime Minister) : "I told the delegates that resolution of pending issues is necessary in order to advance relations. Keeping promises made between two countries is a basic rule."

The policy delegation also met with Japanese business figures and called for a swift lifting of export curbs, saying the restrictions incur losses for both countries. Japanese media outlets reported that the delegation from Seoul was busily going about its schedule in Japan, consistently expressing a strong will to enhance relations. But they also expressed concerns over how the delegates have not conveyed a clear stance on the long-standing disputes between the two countries.