At Cheong Wa Dae this afternoon, President Moon Jae-in met with Fukushiro Nukaga, a member of the House of Representatives of Japan who is serving as the Chairman of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians’ Union, and his delegation as well as Kang Cang-il, a member of the National Assembly of Korea who is serving as the Chairman of the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians’ Union. At the meeting that lasted for approximately 40 minutes from 4:00 o’clock, President Moon called upon the Parliamentarians’ Union of both sides to play a more active role in helping Korea and Japan move forward to a future on the basis of close bonds and trust between the two countries.

President Moon welcomed the Japanese members of the Union to Korea, and he particularly noted with pleasure the fact that Chairman Nukaga, together with Executive Director of the Union Takeo Kawamura, had attended the inaugural ceremony of President Roh Moo-hyun back in 2003.

During the meeting today, the participants shared an understanding that Korea and Japan should advance bilateral relations into a more forward-looking relationship despite difficulties involving historical issues and that the two countries should work closely together to respond to the North Korean nuclear and missile threats.

President Moon noted that the two countries upheld basic values and shared strategic interests as geographically and culturally very close neighbors, adding that they also needed to jointly respond to the North`s nuclear and missile threats. Saying that they constituted a matter of survival for South Korea and also a source of great concern for Japan, the President expressed the hope that the two countries would join forces to overcome the grave security situation. The President went on to say that Korea-Japan relations, which have been at a standstill in recent years, began to see forward-looking progress following his inauguration.

Concerning the matter of women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army, the President noted that the 2015 agreement fell far short of the expectations of the public in Korea. In particular, the President spoke of the lack of a process for sufficient consultations to obtain the consent of the surviving victims. The President added that Koreans still could not accept the agreement emotionally, wondering why the victims and the people were not fully informed of related moves at that time. He continued that, for this reason, a task force within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been established to figure out the details of the agreement, adding that he was monitoring the results. The President went on to say that the intent of the Kono Statement and the Murayama Statement, as well as the Joint Statement by former President Kim Dae-jung and former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, should be kept alive.

Noting that the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics Winter Games will be held this coming February in Korea; the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics will be held in Japan, and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in China, the President said he hoped that with the series of such big events, the relationship between the two countries would be furthered and peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia would be achieved.

Finally, Kim Gwang-lim, the Executive Director of the Korean side of the Parliamentarians` Union, said at the meeting today, the two sides selected the agenda to be discussed at the 40th Korea-Japan Parliamentarians` Union conference to be held in Japan next year and that they were able to reach an agreement without any objection. Kim also said he hoped that pending issues between the two countries, including the subjects of their discussion today, would be included in a joint statement to be made by the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians` Union next year.