Yonhap news agency, Kyodo News Agency reported that South Korean president Lee Jae-Myung 25 local time at the White House with U. S. President Donald Trump held talks, the two talked about south korean-japanese relations. When Donald Trump asked Lee Jae-Myung if “Historical issues will make South Korea and Japan difficult to get along with,” Lee Jae-myung responded that Donald Trump’s concerns had been addressed.
South Korean president Lee Jae-myung held talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House Sunday. Photo from Korean media
Donald Trump was reported to have answered media questions on south korea-japan relations at the meeting, saying he was aware of sensitive issues such as “Comfort women” between the two countries, and asked whether“Historical legacy issues will lead to difficult relations between South Korea and Japan.”. In response, Lee Jae-Myung said that “In view of the fact that Donald Trump attaches great importance to south korea-us-japan cooperation”, he had chosen to visit Japan before the korea-us Summit meeting in order to address Donald Trump’s concerns in advance. Li said that when he met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiguro, he felt that many obstacles between the two countries had been removed.
According to the report, Lee Jae-Myung also said that cooperation between South Korea, the United States and Japan is a very important issue. In order to promote the development of rok-us relations, rok-japan relations should also be improved to a certain extent.
It is worth noting that South Korean president Lee Jae-myung visited the Japanese Prime Minister’s residence on the 23rd to hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiguro. The joint communiqué after the meeting did not touch on historical issues. On the 24th, South Korea’s national security director, Wei Shengluo, introduced the results of the South korea-japan Summit held the day before, saying that although the two sides have involved historical issues, they have not discussed specific issues, but on how to properly deal with the relevant issues and promote future cooperation for directional exchanges.
The absence of historical issues in the joint communiqué of the korea-japan Summit provoked strong dissatisfaction in South Korea, which was condemned by several Korean civic groups. According to the The Hankyoreh, the South Korean Justice Memory Union said it would evaluate the korea-japan Summit and the joint communiqué in one sentence, it is that“The justice of history has been obscured by the rhetoric of ‘Pragmatic Diplomacy’”. South Korea’s Institute of National Issues said the South Korean government“Avoided talking about the Japanese government and Japanese war criminal enterprises, which ignore South Korea’s judicial sovereignty.” Instead, it followed the Japanese line in the communiqué, my country expresses grave concern about this.
Lee Jae-myung said in an interview on the 24th that he expected to be criticized for not addressing the issue of history in the joint communiqué of the South korea-japan Summit, but would continue to advance cooperation with the Japanese even if there was opposition. Li said he did not see the need to give up cooperation with Japan because historical and territorial issues had not been resolved.