Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and her South Korean counterpart, Cho Tae-yul, have reaffirmed the importance of cooperation in order to maintain and strengthen a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
During their 45-minute talks in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on Friday, the two agreed to deal with issues related to North Korea through close cooperation between Japan and South Korea, and between the two countries plus the United States.
Kamikawa and Cho also exchanged views on the Japanese government's aim for wartime labor-linked gold mines on Japan's Sado Island to be listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.
Prior to the meeting, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official suggested that Seoul would accept the UNESCO listing of the gold mines. South Korea has requested that an exhibition and a memorial facility be built to remember that people from the Korean Peninsula were forced to work in the Sado mines during World War II.
With next year to mark the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea, Kamikawa and Cho agreed to work together to make bilateral cooperation stronger and broader in a way that benefits the people of both countries.