SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president on Wednesday referred to as Japan “a companion that shares the identical common values” and renewed hopes to restore ties frayed over Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Since taking workplace in Might final 12 months, President Yoon Suk Yeol has been pushing to fix the historic grievance with Japan and enhance a Seoul-Tokyo-Washington safety cooperation to higher address rising North Korean nuclear threats.

In a televised speech marking the 1919 rebellion in opposition to the Japanese colonizers, Yoon urged his folks to recollect what he referred to as “patriotic martyrs who gave their all for our nation’s freedom and independence throughout the darkish days.” However he averted mentioning any particular colonial wrongdoing as he defined why higher cooperation with Japan is required.

“Now, a century after the March First Independence Motion, Japan has remodeled from a militaristic aggressor of the previous right into a companion that shares the identical common values with us and cooperate on problems with safety, financial system and international agendas,” Yoon mentioned.

“Particularly, the trilateral cooperation among the many Republic of Korea, the US and Japan has grow to be extra necessary than ever to beat the intense nuclear threats posed by North Korea and international polycrisis,” Yoon mentioned.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha College in Seoul, mentioned Yoon’s deal with “affords hopeful indicators not just for Seoul’s relations with Tokyo, but additionally for South Korea‘s position on this planet.”

“Emphasizing shared values is way more than rhetoric if backed up by a international coverage that deepens trilateral cooperation with the U.S. and Japan whereas rising contributions to international efforts, similar to supporting Ukraine, strengthening provide chains, and countering local weather change,” Easley mentioned.

South Korea and Japan are carefully linked economically and culturally and are each key U.S. allies within the area. However they usually bicker over points stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

On the heart of their present dispute is South Korean courtroom rulings in 2018 that ordered two Japanese firms — Nippon Metal and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — to compensate Koreans who had been compelled to work of their factories throughout the Japanese colonial interval.

The businesses and the Japanese authorities have dismissed the rulings, arguing that each one compensation points had been already settled underneath a 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral ties and included Tokyo’s provision of lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to Seoul in financial help and loans.

The dispute prompted the 2 governments to downgrade one another’s commerce standing and Seoul to threaten to desert an intelligence-sharing deal.