Korea tosses ball in Japan's court over Moon's Tokyo visit

No decision on President's Olympic attendance

By Kang Seung-woo

Senior presidential secretary for public communication, Park Soo-hyun, pressed Japan on Wednesday to state its position on President Moon Jae-in's attendance at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics and the possibility of a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Park added that Cheong Wa Dae was willing to wait for a response from Tokyo until the last minute, but urged the Japanese government to maintain diplomatic poise, taking a swipe at the Suga Cabinet, which had used the media to express its negative views concerning a possible summit.

Park's remarks followed a series of Japanese media reports about Moon's visit to Japan on the occasion of the upcoming Olympic Games, scheduled to kick off on July 23. Cheong Wa Dae denied all of the reports, saying that nothing has been decided yet.

“Whether to attend the Olympics is not an issue to consider. Should the President visit Japan, everyone would have hopes for a summit between the two heads of state and an improvement in bilateral relations,” Park said during a radio interview, adding that Japan must be well aware of that fact.

“As the host country, I believe that Japan should offer a summit, which would be perfectly normal. Open to discussing Moon's visit to Japan, we hope that Japan will be more open-minded about the issue.”

Hours later, reaffirming that nothing has been fixed for now, another Cheong Wa Dae official said that the Korean government could review Moon's trip to Tokyo, should a summit with Suga be assured.

Although Suga took office in September last year, Moon has yet to sit down with his Japanese counterpart amid a prolonged diplomatic feud between the two countries over historical and territorial issues, which has caused bilateral relations to deteriorate to the lowest level in decades.

On the sidelines of last month's G7 Summit in the United Kingdom, the two leaders were supposed to hold a long-overdue meeting, but the Japanese side canceled the prearranged summit at the last minute, citing Seoul's plan to hold annual military drills on and around its easternmost islets of Dokdo. Although Korea controls Dokdo, Japan has repeatedly made territorial claims to it.

The latest report about Moon's Olympic attendance came Tuesday when the Sankei Shimbun reported that Korea had notified Japan of Moon's possible attendance, but it was later denied by Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, who said that Tokyo did not receive any official notice from Korea.

In response to consecutive reports about Moon's attendance, Park said that diplomacy should maintain a certain level of class, hoping that Japan will live up to its billing as a leading country in the world.

Shin Beom-chul, director of the Center for Diplomacy and Security at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said that the government needs to make a decision to skip the Olympics if Japan continues refusing to cooperate on a summit.

“Even if Moon visits Japan, there is little chance to see ties get better, because the two sides remain far apart over how to address the wartime forced labor issue,” Shin said.