Three-way vice foreign ministerial talks held in Washington

Vice Foreign Ministers of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan held a talks at the U.S. State Department on Thursday but little progress has made about the address that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is slated to make at a joint session of Congress on April 29.

To the request of South Korean Vice Foreign Minister that ‘Abe must deliver a message containing correct perception of history,’ Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki avoided detailed remarks on the issue, saying that he hasn’t read the address draft yet.

Japanese Vice Foreign Minister said, “We (Japan) are facing the history squarely and Prime Minister Abe has publicly expressed the view over the matter of history.” Controversies are expected as the Japanese top diplomat’s remarks support predictions of diplomats in Washington that the Japanese Prime Minister would not make an apology on Japan’s wartime atrocities, such as the issue of forcibly conscripted comfort women, to the extent that the South Korean government and the public opinion in South Korea are satisfied with.

“South Korea and Japan have shown very positive relationship over the past five decades. The two nations have a responsibility to bring it to another level,” said the Japanese Vice Foreign Minister. The remarks are interpreted as an intention to focus on the future rather than the past.

At the bilateral talks with Saiki following the trilateral talks, South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yong demanded Japan to have sincere reflection on its past wrongdoings and make clear its stance on the matter of history, saying, “South Korean government has firm principles and creed on the history issues.” On the other hand, the South Korean Vice Foreign Minister also pledged to increase collaborations in other areas such as North Korean nuclear issue and economy, making public that the South Korean government will take the ‘two track’ approach by dividing historical disputes from security issues.