/JAPAN: S. Korean Leader To Visit Japan Next Week In Further Push To Mend Ties

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to visit Japan at some point next week, with his office "closely looking at options" for the possible date of the summit, the Korea Herald reports.

• Separately, Japan's junior coalition party Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi told a news conference that "Prime Minister Kishida has indicated that he would like to hold a summit with South Korea's Yoon Suk-yeol as early as late next week."
• Kyodo news circulated a source report noting that Yoon could visit Tokyo on March 16-17, but there has been no official confirmation on that front, with both sides likely finalising the details of the visit.
• Yoon's trip will be the first visit to Japan by a South Korean leader since 2019, albeit it was on the occasion of a G20 summit in Osaka. The leaders of South Korea and Japan used to exchange visits once a year, but the practice was discontinued in 2011.
• The two East Asian democracies expressed their intention to return to regular bilateral summits as they managed to reach a breakthrough in their long-running spat over compensation for wartime forced labourers.
• The Korea Herald reports that Yoon's diplomatic offensive in the coming months will also involve an April trip to Washington DC and a trilateral meeting with Japan's Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden on the fringes of the G7 summit in May.