South Korean foreign minister to visit Japan
South Korean foreign minister to visit Japan
Reuters, Tokyo
South Korea's foreign minister, who last week canceled a planned trip to Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a Tokyo shrine for war dead, will visit this week after all, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Beijing and Seoul protested last week after Koizumi paid his respects at Yasukuni shrine, seen by many in China and Korea as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, but the announcement of the visit by Ban Ki-moon is the latest sign that the furor may be dying down.
Japan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Ban would visit Tokyo from Oct. 27 to Oct. 29 for discussions on a variety of issues with Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura as well as Koizumi.
Ban said last Wednesday he did not think the mood was "appropriate" for such a trip.
His announcement came after China called off a planned visit by Machimura. South Korea has also said President Roh Moo-hyun was unlikely to meet Koizumi for their semi-annual summit.
Koizumi was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling reporters on Monday, though, that he thought South Korea was "level-headed" about his visit to the shrine on Oct. 17, his fifth since taking office.
"Friendship between Japan and South Korea has not changed," Koizumi said, following a meeting with political ally Taku Yamasaki, who went to South Korea last week.
Koizumi's pilgrimage threatened to worsen already strained ties with China, the site of angry protests against Japan in April. But no major boycotts or demonstrations have been seen in China so far.
Japanese business executives had also worried that the strains would damage economic relations between China and Japan, which have annual trade worth about US$212 billion.
But according to a survey by the Japanese economic daily Nihon Keizai, 20 operators of department stores, supermarkets and electronics stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chongqing detected no sign of consumers boycotting Japanese goods.