Moon plans to visit Tokyo for opening of Olympics, South Korean media says

Seoul – South Korean President Moon Jae-in is planning to visit Japan to attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Friday.

Citing a South Korean government official, the South Korean daily said Moon is mulling a stay in Tokyo for two days from July 23, when the opening event will be held. But it is unclear if Moon will meet with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

However, officials at the Japanese Foreign Ministry said Moon’s visit has not been fixed yet.

Their meeting, if realized, will be the two countries’ first summit talks since December 2019 when Suga’s predecessor Shinzo Abe met with Moon in China.

Suga and Moon exchanged greetings at the Group of Seven summit event in Britain in June.

The prime minister, when asked at a news conference on Thursday if he will meet with Moon, said, “It’s natural to treat (him) in a polite manner in light of diplomatic protocols.”

Moon’s planned visit to Japan would be the first since he participated in the Group of 20 summit in Osaka in June 2019.

Tokyo-Seoul relations have sunk to their lowest point in decades following South Korean Supreme Court rulings in 2018 that ordered Japanese companies to compensate plaintiffs who were laborers during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Relations worsened in January when the Seoul Central District Court ordered the Japanese government to pay damages over the treatment of “comfort women.”

Comfort women is a euphemism for those who suffered under Japan’s military brothel system before and during World War II. They were forced or coerced into sexual servitude under various circumstances, including abduction, deception and poverty.

Japan takes the position that a 1965 bilateral agreement settled all claims related to its colonial rule of the peninsula, including those of the laborers and former comfort women.