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Leaders of Japan & South Korea discuss security |
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September 24, 2000
ATAMI (AP) - The leaders of Japan and South Korea met Saturday to discuss joint policy toward North Korea and ties between their own countries, important trading partners kept apart by wartime resentment. Japan and South Korea are interdependent as Asia's largest economies, but they are diplomatically distant because of the South's enduring bitterness over Japan's bloody 1910-1945 colonization of Korea. The summit between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in this seaside resort outside Tokyo was intended to bolster the process of cementing relations through defense consultations, cultural exchanges and the joint hosting of the 2002 soccer World Cup. The shared threat of Stalinist North Korea's missile program has been instrumental in bringing the nations closer together, and the two leaders were to discuss how to further coordinate their security policy. Japan has taken a keen interest in the dramatic detente between the two Koreas that began with their landmark summit in June. Mori was expected to express support for progress in the thaw.
The warming North-South ties have contributed to growing Tokyo-Pyongyang contacts, which fell apart two years ago when the North tested a ballistic missile that flew over Japan. In a second round of talks this year, a North Korean delegation visited Japan in August to discuss setting up diplomatic ties. The summit got off on a note of amicable rivalry, with the two leaders discussing South Korea's narrow 7-6 defeat of Japan in an Olympic baseball game Saturday. "Somebody has to win," Kim told Mori in a gesture of consolation. "In today's game both sides played great." Mori said in a speech on Thursday that his meeting with Kim would be part of continuing efforts to bring about "a new era in Northeast Asia" through cooperation on North Korea policy with Seoul and Washington. Also on the agenda in Saturday's talks was a bill expected to be debated in Japan's Parliament to extend local voting rights to the 700,000 ethnic Koreans living in Japan. Thousands of South Koreans were brought to Japan before World War II to work under slave labor conditions. Their descendants, most of whom do not have Japanese citizenship, say they deserve a say in the way they are governed. In a meeting Monday in Seoul with senior members of Japan's ruling coalition, Kim urged Japan to make sure the bill gets passed in the current session of Parliament. The two leaders were also expected to talk about a possible treaty to protect investors from one country putting money into the other, and cooperation in the rapidly expanding information technology industry. In addition, the two leaders were to discuss ways to build ties between the youth of their countries through cultural exchanges. Until recently, Japanese movies and pop music were banned in South Korea. Ethnic Koreans living in Japan continue to face discrimination in their work and social lives. Mori and Kim have met three times since Mori took office in April. This is Kim's first visit to Japan since his June summit with the North's Kim Jong Il.
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