3-way summit likely on May 21 in Hiroshima: reports

President Yoon Suk Yeol (right) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shake hands at the Korea-Japan summit meeting held at the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul, Thursday. (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk Yeol may hold a bilateral talk with Japan as well as a trilateral summit with the US and Japan on May 21, the final day of a G-7 summit in Hiroshima, according to Japanese media outlets on Thursday.

According to the news report, the Japanese government plans to strengthen trilateral cooperation in the security sector and speed up the normalization of Korea-Japan relations through the summits. If a Korea-Japan summit takes place on the last day of the G-7 summit, the leaders of the two countries will be meeting for the third time in just over two months. They met on March 16 in Tokyo and May 7 in Seoul.

The summit is expected to be held on the same day Yoon and Kishida together pay their respects at a memorial stone for Korean victims of the atomic bomb attack at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. About 100,000 Koreans lived in Hiroshima in 1945. It is estimated that about 30,000 Koreans died from the atomic bombing.

No previous Korean president has visited the memorial monument for Korean atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima. Among Japanese prime ministers, Keizo Obuchi visited the shrine in 1999.

At the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, nuclear disarmament and the situation in Ukraine are expected to be discussed. Sankei reported that the Japanese government is considering holding a press conference in the Peace Park after the summit.

According to diplomatic sources, Japanese Liberal Democratic Party Vice President Taro Aso arrived in Seoul on Wednesday evening to meet with Yoon to show his support for the ongoing efforts to improve bilateral relations between South Korea and Japan.

By Shin Ji-hye(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)