The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan met in Seoul yesterday to discuss strengthening their relations in the face of increasing security challenges in the region and political tumult in the host nation.
It marked the highest-level diplomatic meeting between the nations since South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived imposition of martial law last month, a move that has triggered political turmoil in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.
It also came amid heightened concerns about North Korea’s missile testing and deepening security pact with Russia, and China’s increasingly muscular attempts to assert its maritime claims in the South and East China seas.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The security situation in this region is becoming very severe, and in that strategic environment the importance of Japan-ROK [Republic of Korea] relations has not changed, and in fact has become increasingly important,” Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya said at a joint news conference with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul.
Iwaya yesterday was also due to meet Acting South Korean President Choi Sang-mok, who is standing in for the impeached Yoon.
Yoon has been holed up in his hillside villa in Seoul since parliament voted to suspend him last month over his martial law decree on Dec. 3, with investigators vowing to arrest him in a separate probe into possible insurrection.
At their news conference, Iwaya and Choi also reiterated the importance of developing three-way security cooperation with their shared ally, the US.
With the administration of US president-elect Donald Trump set to begin on Monday next week, none of the original leaders who established the security pact between the nations in 2023 — US President Joe Biden, Yoon and former Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida — would remain in power.
Yoon had made it a diplomatic priority to mend ties with Tokyo — often strained by historic issues — and pursue a joint security drive with Washington to tackle North Korea’s military threats.
In a nod to those efforts to put aside historic issues, Iwaya earlier yesterday visited the Seoul National Cemetery which honors Korean veterans, including those who died seeking independence from Japanese colonial rule, which ended in 1945.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week on a visit to South Korea expressed confidence in Seoul’s democratic process, although he said that Washington had expressed “serious concerns” over some of the actions Yoon took over the course of his martial law declaration.
Despite polls showing a majority of South Koreans disapprove of Yoon’s martial law declaration and support his impeachment, his ruling People Power Party has enjoyed somewhat of a revival.
Support for the party stood at 40.8 percent in the latest Realmeter poll released yesterday, while the main opposition Democratic Party’s support stood at 42.2 percent, within a margin of error and down from a gap of 10.8 percent last week, the poll said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS