UPDATE 2 - In summit with Japan’s Takaichi, S.Korea's Lee seeks trilateral cooperation with China

UPDATES WITH OUTCOME OF THE SUMMIT, CHANGES HEADER, ADDS 2ND DECK

By Islamuddin Sajid and Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called for a trilateral cooperation among Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, during his summit with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

“I emphasized the need for the three Northeast Asian countries -- (South) Korea, Japan, and China -- to identify as much common ground as possible in order to communicate and cooperate," Lee told a joint news conference in Takaichi’s native province of Nara, the Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.

Lee's remarks came after his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week, amid the ongoing tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over Taiwan.

Urging Tokyo and Seoul to take steps toward a "better future," Lee stressed that "cooperation" between South Korea and Japan was "more important than ever."

He is on a two-day official trip to Japan.

"Amid a complex and dizzying international order, I believe that cooperation between (South) Korea and Japan is more important than ever," Lee told Takaichi.

Takaichi, in her comments to media, said the two sides “agreed to advance discussions on the economy and economic security fields for strategic and mutually beneficial collaboration,” Kyodo News reported.

The trip marks Lee’s second visit to Japan, following his visit last August for talks with Takaichi’s predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, and this is his fifth meeting with a Japanese premier since he took office last June.

Takaichi also visited South Korea last October for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju, during which she met with Lee and also held her first meeting with Chinese President Xi.

China-Japan relations have deteriorated since November, when Takaichi said a Chinese attack on Taiwan could legally constitute a “survival-threatening situation,” potentially allowing Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense.

The remarks prompted strong backlash from Beijing, which advised Chinese citizens against travel to Japan and reinstated a ban on Japanese seafood imports, among other measures.

- DNA analysis of Korean victims of 1942 floods

Ahead of his visit, Lee said that Seoul’s relations with Tokyo are as important as its ties with Beijing, adding that tensions over Taiwan are not an issue South Korea would “engage in or intervene in.”

Lee said the two sides reaffirmed their cooperation toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, as well as “agreed on the importance of trilateral security collaboration with their common ally, the United States.”

Seoul-Tokyo relations have improved in recent years after reaching their lowest point in decades, following disputes over compensation for South Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula (1910-1945) and other historical and territorial issues.

The two sides will also work to recover remains, and conduct DNA analysis for identification, of 183 people, including 136 Korean forced laborers, from the Chosei undersea coal mine in Japan's western Yamaguchi province, who were killed during a flood in 1942.

The two maritime neighbors formally established ties in 1965, when Seoul paid $500 million in economic assistance to South Korea to normalize ties.

Over the past decades, the bilateral trade volume has reached around $75 billion.