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Moon ditches Tokyo visit plan

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Park Soo-hyun, Cheong Wa Dae's senior secretary for public communication, announces the presidential office's decision that President Moon Jae-in will not visit Japan during the Tokyo Olympics, at the presidential office in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
Park Soo-hyun, Cheong Wa Dae's senior secretary for public communication, announces the presidential office's decision that President Moon Jae-in will not visit Japan during the Tokyo Olympics, at the presidential office in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

Japanese diplomat's disrespectful remark on Moon becomes final factor in deciding against summit with Suga

By Jung Da-min

President Moon Jae-in will not visit Japan on the occasion of the Summer Olympics, Cheong Wa Dae announced, Monday.

The announcement followed weeks of diplomatic tensions between the two governments over the visit, with a rude remark by a Japanese diplomat here playing the key factor in discouraging the Korean leader's plan to improve the chilled relations through a summit.

"The governments of Korea and Japan had meaningful discussions about how to make progress on historical issues between the two countries and about the direction for future-oriented cooperation, while considering the possibility of holding a Korea-Japan summit on the occasion of the Tokyo Olympics," said Park Soo-hyun, senior presidential secretary for public communication.

"The two sides have reached a considerable understanding after conducting consultations in a friendly atmosphere, but Cheong Wa Dae concluded the understanding was insufficient to make the summit lead to an achievement, so we made the decision (of the President not visiting Japan) after considering various circumstances in a comprehensive way."

Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Hwang Hee will represent the Korean government at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, slated for July 23, according to the presidential office.

For weeks, Cheong Wa Dae had been seriously considering a summit between Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga but the two sides have been at odds over the form of the possible summit.

President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting with his top aides held at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting with his top aides held at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

While Cheong Wa Dae wanted a formal summit between Moon and Suga for an in-depth discussion about pending bilateral issues including thorny historical ones, Japanese media kept reporting that any talks between the two leaders will last only 15 minutes due to time constraints, widely believed among diplomatic experts as the Japanese government's intentional leakage to media. Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "strong regrets over leaks of the two sides' consultations through media reports describing Japan's unilateral perspective citing Japanese government officials," warning "it may be difficult for the two governments to continue consultations over a summit."

But what seems to have played a major role in Cheong Wa Dae's final decision to scrap the President's visit to Tokyo at the last minute, four days before the Tokyo Olympics kick off, is a diplomatic discourtesy made by a Japanese envoy in Seoul.

Hirohisa Soma, the deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, ridiculed the President's efforts to hold a summit with the Japanese prime minister, describing it as "masturbating" during a meeting with reporters from local broadcaster JTBC, which made headlines last Friday evening.

Soma's remarks have been slammed by Cheong Wa Dae and Korean politicians, and Cheong Wa Dae did not deny his remark affected the presidential office's decision. "The remark was intolerable. We have to consider public sentiment, and the internal atmosphere of Cheong Wa Dae has also changed since the remark was made," a Cheong Wa Dae official said.

The official said the presidential office noted that Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato and Japanese Ambassador to Korea Koichi Aiboshi expressed strong regret over Soma's sexually lewd comment. But he added that the Korean government still urges the Japanese government to pursue a proper follow-up action, such as the dismissal of Soma as widely expected. Kato said the country's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi is expected to make a decision on replacing Soma in consideration of his term of duty.

Asked about if there has been any progress in discussions of historical issues such as wartime sex slavery or forced labor, the official said he could not disclose details of the diplomatic consultations but the two sides have yet to reach an agreement and there has been little progress in overall discussions.


Jung Da-min damin.jung@koreatimes.co.kr


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