S. Korean president, senior Japanese diplomats call for bilateral relations to move "hand-in-hand towards future"

This week, Seoul and Tokyo celebrate 60 years of normalizing diplomatic relations.

The Japanese Embassy in Seoul held a reception to celebrate the milestone, with the theme being "hand-in-hand towards a better future", which was echoed by President Lee Jae Myung.

Byeon Ye-young reports.

From historic highs and lows, South Korea and Japan are pledging to move forward --"hand-in-hand towards a better future."

That was the message from President Lee Jae-myung and senior diplomats as both nations marked 60 years since normalising bilateral relations.

On Monday, the Japanese Embassy in Seoul hosted a reception to mark the milestone,.. reflecting on the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations, signed twenty years after Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule at the end of World War Two.

They also agreed on economic cooperation, and a claims settlement, under which Japan provided 300 million dollars in grants and 200 million in loans over 10 years.

Over the past six decades annual trade between the two neighbours has surged from just 200 million U.S. dollars to around 70 billion dollars last year --a 350-fold increase.

And people traveling between the two countries, numbering around 10-thousand in 1965, has now surpassed 12 million a year.

But history remains a sensitive fault line.

Japan's wartime forced labour, its sexual enslavement of so-called "comfort women," and territorial disputes have long fuelled friction which spiraled in 2019, into a full-blown diplomatic and trade standoff.

The Yoon Suk Yeol government moved to mend ties, restoring reciprocal visits between leaders, and strengthening trilateral cooperation with the United States.

President Lee Jae-myung has signaled continued engagement., speaking via video due to his trip to Canada to attend the G7 Summit.

Japan's Ambassador Mizushima Koichi said the two nations should now build new momentum for the decades ahead, and emphasised the importance of trilateral ties with the U.S.

Japan's Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, Nagashima Akihisa --who also heads the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians' Union --called for broader cooperation.

"Expanding bilateral communication and cooperation is no longer a choice, but a necessity. This applies across various sectors, including security, economy, energy, technology, and culture."

The commemorations will continue on Thursday in Tokyo, where Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to attend a corresponding reception hosted by the Korean Embassy.

But first, President Lee and Prime Minister Ishiba could well hold their first meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit.

Byeon Ye-young, Arirang News.