By Soo-hyang Choi
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol departed for the United States on Thursday for a summit with U.S. and Japanese leaders as the three countries seek to step up cooperation amid mounting shared concerns about China and North Korea.
Yoon, a conservative, has made improving relations with Tokyo a central foreign policy goal after relations soured under his predecessor amid legal spats over Koreans forced to work in Japan’s wartime factories, trade disputes, and longstanding tensions over a disputed island.
Ties between South Korea and Japan have long been strained by disputes dating to Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
The summit will set a “new milestone” in trilateral cooperation, Yoon said on Tuesday.
He is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland on Friday, where they will launch a series of joint initiatives on technology, education and defence, senior U.S. officials said.
The meeting will lead to at least two joint statements by the leaders, South Korea’s deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo said.
The United States, which has separate alliances with South Korea and Japan, has been pressing both countries to improve ties to ensure better cooperation on issues such as North Korea and China.
On Monday, North Korea’s state media said its leader Kim Jong Un has called for an increase in missile production to secure “overwhelming military power” and be ready for war, as South Korea and the U.S. gear up for annual military drills.
Yoon departed hours after wrapping up several days of funeral rites for his father, who died on Tuesday at age 92.
(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Josh Smith and Simon Cameron-Moore)