Tokyo seeks cordial ties with Seoul before Obama takes office

By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Yonhap) -- After months of renewed tension over a territorial
issue, South Korea and Japan are fast moving to put their often-prickly ties back
on track.
Japanese Prime Minister Taso Aso will likely visit South Korea next month for a
summit with President Lee Myung-bak before the launch of the Obama administration
in the United States, signalling a full-scale resumption of the biannual shuttle
summit between the sides.
"We will give more consideration to Japan's position in setting a date for the
summit, as it is them who have to pack up bags and come here," a senior South
Korean foreign ministry official said.
South Korea's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday that Tokyo has
proposed a three-day summit from around Jan. 10, which falls on Japanese
holidays. The Japanese prime minister is required to get approval from the
country's bicameral legislature for travel abroad in working days during its
session.
Japanese media said Aso, who is apparently weighing when to call a snap election
while his approval ratings remains below 20 percent, is seeking to improve ties
with South Korea before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, whose Asia policy has
yet to materialize clearly, comes into office.
Japanese officials have a bitter memory of "Japan passing" during the Clinton
era. Japan endured strained ties, highlighted by trade disputes, with the
Democrats at that time, fueling speculation that Japan's era has passed.
"In the trilateral summit among South Korea, China, and Japan on Dec. 13,
President Lee invited Prime Minister Aso to visit South Korea," the official
said, refusing to comment on Aso's possible political intention behind his push
to hold such an unusual New Year summit with Lee.
"We don't need a lot of time to prepare for the summit since it will be held in a
casual way to meet the purpose of the shuttle summit," he said. "An exact date
and venue have yet to be fixed."
Seoul's flexibility follows Tokyo's recent move to drop the description of Dokdo,
a set of rocky islets at the center of decades-old diplomatic spat between the
two countries, in its draft of a new teaching manual for high school students
that was released on Monday.
Dokdo, lying in the East Sea between the neighboring nations, is effectively
controlled by South Korea but also claimed by Japan.
In July, the Japanese education ministry announced an educational guideline for
middle schools urging instructors to teach in school classrooms that Dokdo's
ownership is disputed. The step ruptured the cordial mood between the two sides
after President's Lee's trip to Tokyo just months earlier.
Seoul recalled its ambassador to Tokyo Kwon Chul-hyun for three weeks in protest
and also rejected Tokyo's offer of routine foreign ministerial talks on the
sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum held in Singapore in late July.
Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have often been marred by disputes over history
and territory, in part a legacy of Japan's colonial rule of Korea from 1910-45.
Japanese and South Korean leaders began one-on-one shuttle diplomacy in July
2004, but the exchanges stopped a year later due to South Korea's anger over then
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni
Shrine in Tokyo that hold Japan's war dead, including war criminals.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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