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Japan's defense chief calls on S.Korea to expand security cooperation

Xinhua, October 20, 2015 Adjust font size:

Visiting Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said here on Tuesday that his country and South Korea should strengthen security cooperation to a global level amid some signs of a thaw in relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

Nakatani arrived in Seoul earlier in the day for a three-day travel, the first to South Korea by Japan's defense chief in nearly five years, to sit down one-on-one with his South Korean counterpart Han Min-Koo, according to Seoul's defense ministry. The last such visit was made in January 2011.

"Security cooperation between the two countries should not stay at a regional level but advance to a global level," Nakatani said during a meeting with Han in the headquarters of Seoul's defense ministry.

The Japanese defense minister said that Tokyo and Seoul were sharing interests on security. Han and Nakatani last met in Singapore on May 30 on the sidelines of the Shangri-La dialogue, a regional dialogue channel for security in Asia.

Nakatani's visit came amid some signs of thawing relations between the two key U.S. military allies. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said last week on her four-day visit to Washington that she was open to a sit-down with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Park and Abe were expected to hold the first bilateral summit, since she took office in February 2013, in Seoul on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with China believed to be held in coming weeks.

The South Korean leader has refused to sit down face-to-face with Abe, calling on the Japanese premier to make a sincere apology for Korean"comfort women" forcibly recruited to serve in Japan's military brothels during World War II.

Abe made a ritual offering again to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine Saturday, and two cabinet ministers paid respects Sunday. On Tuesday, scores of Japanese politicians visited the shrine, widely seen as a symbol of Japan's militarist past because it honors Japan's war dead including 14 class-A convicted war criminals. Endit