By Kim Tae-gyu
President Park Geun-hye is not likely to accept repeated requests by Japan for a summit anytime soon, presidential aides said Wednesday.
A Cheong Wa Dae official said that the country has made no immediate plans to arrange a summit, despite some pundits expecting a meeting to mend frayed relations.
There has also been speculation that the two may have a meeting next month on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Russia's Saint Petersburg.
"We saw media reports that some Japanese officials had called for a Park-Abe meeting. But we have yet to receive any official request from Japan," said an official who asked not to be named.
"As of now, we have no immediate plans for one. In Russia, the two will be meeting with many other leaders, but not one another."
Over dinner this week, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida purportedly asked Korean diplomats for a summit between Park and Abe this autumn.
In addition, some officials will visit Korea this week including former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who plans to take part in a forum in Seoul.
If he does pay a courtesy visit to Park, observers predict that he may propose a summit with Abe. Fukuda met Park twice this year as the two have a special relationship — his father Takeo Fukuda, also former prime minister, was close to her father Park Chung-hee.
Describing Seoul as Japan's most significant neighbor, Abe himself asked to meet Park to mend fences late last month.
The relationship between the two countries has become tense of late as several senior Japanese bureaucrats and politicians have made provocative remarks about Korea.
The diplomatic discord started just after Abe took office late last year as the ultra-rightist leader generated furor among Koreans by disclaiming Japan's wartime misdeeds.
Abe also renewed territorial claims to the Korean islets of Dokdo, which observers point out demonstrates his lack of contrition for the country's colonial wrongdoing.
Against this backdrop, public sentiment in Korea has been negative toward Abe and Japan, prompting Park to delay her visit to the island country after her inauguration this February, breaking from diplomatic convention in the past.
Former presidents tended to pick Japan as the second place to visit after the United States, but Park did not do so — she visited the U.S. in May and China in June.
She will visit Russia and Vietnam next month and the United Kingdom in early November.
But she does not have any plans to fly to Tokyo, and pundits say that without a diplomatic breakthrough, Park is unlikely to meet Abe this year.
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| President Park Geun-hye |
A Cheong Wa Dae official said that the country has made no immediate plans to arrange a summit, despite some pundits expecting a meeting to mend frayed relations.
There has also been speculation that the two may have a meeting next month on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Russia's Saint Petersburg.
"We saw media reports that some Japanese officials had called for a Park-Abe meeting. But we have yet to receive any official request from Japan," said an official who asked not to be named.
"As of now, we have no immediate plans for one. In Russia, the two will be meeting with many other leaders, but not one another."
Over dinner this week, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida purportedly asked Korean diplomats for a summit between Park and Abe this autumn.
In addition, some officials will visit Korea this week including former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who plans to take part in a forum in Seoul.
If he does pay a courtesy visit to Park, observers predict that he may propose a summit with Abe. Fukuda met Park twice this year as the two have a special relationship — his father Takeo Fukuda, also former prime minister, was close to her father Park Chung-hee.
Describing Seoul as Japan's most significant neighbor, Abe himself asked to meet Park to mend fences late last month.
The relationship between the two countries has become tense of late as several senior Japanese bureaucrats and politicians have made provocative remarks about Korea.
The diplomatic discord started just after Abe took office late last year as the ultra-rightist leader generated furor among Koreans by disclaiming Japan's wartime misdeeds.
Abe also renewed territorial claims to the Korean islets of Dokdo, which observers point out demonstrates his lack of contrition for the country's colonial wrongdoing.
Against this backdrop, public sentiment in Korea has been negative toward Abe and Japan, prompting Park to delay her visit to the island country after her inauguration this February, breaking from diplomatic convention in the past.
Former presidents tended to pick Japan as the second place to visit after the United States, but Park did not do so — she visited the U.S. in May and China in June.
She will visit Russia and Vietnam next month and the United Kingdom in early November.
But she does not have any plans to fly to Tokyo, and pundits say that without a diplomatic breakthrough, Park is unlikely to meet Abe this year.
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