South Korea’s Foreign Minister nominee Park Jin said Friday that the incoming government will welcome a Japanese delegation if they come to the presidential inauguration of Korean President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol.

Park, however, said he did not hear whether Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would travel to Seoul for the ceremony that is scheduled on May 10, and Japanese media outlets reported Kishida will not attend due to unresolved conflicts between the two countries.

Citing several government sources, Sankei Shimbun reported that the Japanese prime minister will not attend the ceremony because the governments of Japan and South Korea exchanged “no solutions” on several conflicting issues.

Instead, Japanese government is considering to send its Foreign Minister Yoshimaya Hayashi and other officials, the report said.

Ties between the neighboring countries remain at their worst in recent history as the two are at odds over several issues that stem from their shared history -- Japan’s forcing Koreans into labor and sexual slavery during its colonization of the Peninsula.

As a Korean court ordered assets seized from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries be sold off so that the money can be used to compensate Korean victims of wartime forced labor, the Japanese company made another appeal to the Supreme Court on the case this month. 


As opinions are divided on Kishida’s visit, observers say that it would pose a risk for the prime minister, especially if he makes his trip to Seoul and the Korean court still pushes on to order the asset liquidation.

At the same time, the Japanese prime minister’s participation in the Korean president’s inauguration ceremony would be an “opportunity to normalize the bilateral relations,” an editorial from Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said.

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol sent a policy consultation delegation to Japan earlier this week, a move aimed at improving bilateral relations, to coordinate policies before he officially comes into office on May 10.

The delegation met with Kishida and exchanged opinions on current affairs during the trip.

The chief of the Korean delegation, National Assembly Deputy Speaker Rep. Chung Jin-suk of the People Power Party, said his team delivered the message that joint efforts are needed to resolve the relationship.

On the idea of holding an early summit of leaders of South Korea and Japan, Chung said they have rehashed the basic points of how the two sides have to come up with plans that can build bilateral trust first.

The last time a Japanese prime minister attended a Korean presidential inauguration ceremony was in 2008, when Yasuo Fukuda traveled to Seoul for the inauguration of Lee Myung-bak. At that time, the two leaders also held a summit here.

For former South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s inauguration, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori were in attendance.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)