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

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.

During the meeting, the defense ministers discussed security situations on the Korean peninsula, including nuclear and missile threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Nakatani also briefed Han on the recent passage of security bills in Japan's Diet that allow its military to fight abroad for its allies, especially the United States, dismissing the pacifist constitution that had banned Tokyo from such military activities since its World War II defeat.

South Korea has been concerned about the passage of security legislation in Japan as Tokyo could repeat its history of aggression on the Korean Peninsula in the name of helping Seoul fight against Pyongyang. The peninsula was under Japan's colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.

"In case that Japan's self-defense forces operate in the territory of another country, (Japan) needs to win consent from the country concerned according to international laws," Nakatani said, adding that it was the guideline of his government.

Han said that Japan's military activities should be pushed in the direction of contributing to peace and stability in Northeast Asia as well as on the Korean Peninsula.

Japan offered to sign agreements on sharing military intelligence with South Korea and providing military logistics to each other, but Seoul refused the proposals due to lack of support from the public and lawmakers caused by ongoing historical and territorial disputes between the two nations.

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.

Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement over the weekend that Abe's offering and cabinet ministers' visits had"no difference from glorifying Japan's past colonization and war of aggression"during the first half of the 20th century. Endit