Japan’s Yomiuri “Korea has solidified its policy to normalize GSOMIA”

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President Yoon Seok-yeol shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a Korea-Japan summit held at a hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the 13th (local time). Office of the President website

Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported on the 9th that the South Korean government has solidified its policy of normalizing the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).

Yomiuri quoted a South Korean government official as saying that the Yoon Seok-yeol administration is seeking to strengthen security cooperation between South Korea and Japan while North Korea is promoting nuclear and missile development, and that this policy has been solidified.

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Previously, in July 2019, the Japanese government announced that it would strengthen export regulations for the three major items of semiconductors and displays to Korea, mentioning the management of strategic materials. Then, in August of the same year, the cabinet passed an amendment to the Export Trade Management Enforcement Ordinance, which excludes Korea from the white list (white countries), a list of allied countries for managing strategic materials.

When Japan enforced its decision to exclude the list, the South Korean government responded with the Korea-Japan Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) card. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs notified the Japanese government of its decision to terminate GSOMIA through a diplomatic note, and then sent an official letter suspending the effect of the notice to terminate GSOMIA. As a result, GSOMIA’s legal status has remained unstable to this day.

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In response, Yomiuri reported that the Yoon Seok-yeol government plans to withdraw the notice it notified Japan regarding GSOMIA and announce to Japan that it will withdraw a series of measures.

“At the Korea-Japan summit to be held in Tokyo next week, the leaders of the two countries are expected to confirm the importance of GSOMIA,” Yomiuri explained.

In addition, he added that the timing of the final announcement of normalization would be decided based on the progress of Japan’s lifting of export measures to South Korea.

In addition, the South Korean and Japanese governments are coordinating in the direction of confirming the resumption of ‘shuttle diplomacy’ in which the leaders of the two countries visit each other regularly at the Korea-Japan summit to be held in Tokyo later next week.

At the Korea-Japan summit, which is being reviewed as a promising meeting on the 16th and 17th, it is expected that economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges will be the main agenda, focusing on strengthening security cooperation between Korea and Japan and the US and Japan based on the situation in North Korea.

Source: Donga

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