Japanese Defense Chief to Visit S. Korea by Year-End

Seoul, Nov. 21 (Jiji Press)--South Korea's defense ministry said Thursday Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani will visit the country by the end of this year.

Nakatani agreed on his first visit to South Korea as Japan's defense chief since October 2015 at a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Yong-hyun, in the Lao capital of Vientiane the same day, according to the ministry.

Itineraries will be fixed later. But the visit is highly likely to be scheduled for late next month, people familiar with the matter said.

Any Japanese defense minister has not made a trip to the neighboring country for the nine years since Nakatani's previous visit.

Japan-South Korea defense ties soured after a fire-control radar rock-on incident involving a South Korean warship and a Japanese Self-Defense Force aircraft in 2018. But the defense ministries of the two countries have reactivated interchanges since their chiefs agreed on measures to prevent such a dangerous event from happening again in June this year.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]