Japan and South Korea vowed to “deepen communication” in the future during a rare meeting on Saturday, diplomatic sources said, following a collapse in relations between the neighbors.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida held “candid” talks with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se on the eve of a regional security dialogue in Myanmar’s capital, a Japanese diplomatic source said.
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy press secretary Koichi Mizushima said that the two nations had discussed “the future direction of the Japan and Korea relationship.”
“They agreed on the importance to continue and deepen communication,” Mizushima told reporters, adding that future talks would be at various levels, including the foreign ministers.
“Although there are some difficult issues between the two countries, the good relationship between Japan and [South] Korea is for the mutual benefit not only for both countries, but also good for the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.
The last official meeting between the two foreign ministers was in September last year in New York.
A summit between the leaders of the two nations in March failed to dampen the rancor between the neighbors, which stems from disputes related to Japan’s 1910 to 1945 rule over the Korean Peninsula. They include a territorial row over a tiny batch of rocky islets and Seoul’s demands for further reparations for Korean women forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese World War II military brothels.
Japan has long maintained that all issues relating to the colonial period were settled under a 1965 bilateral treaty that normalized diplomatic ties with South Korea.
However, in a sign of the depth of the antipathy, on Tuesday the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement branding Japan’s claim to the islands as “ludicrous” and “unacceptable.”
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS