1. On September 24, Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun attended the 2017 round of the “Korea-Japan Festival in Seoul,” the largest private exchange event between the Republic of Korea and Japan. At the Festival, he stressed that in line with the theme of the 2017 round, “let’s go forward together with one mind,” the two countries, by understanding and working with each other, build stable, future-oriented relations.

° Vice Minister Cho delivered celebratory remarks at the opening ceremony of the Festival, in which he noted with appreciation that the ROK and Japan, neighbors with shared basic values and strategic interests, had held two rounds of bilateral summit talks and other summit-level exchanges in a robust manner over the short period of four months since the launch of the new government in the ROK.

※ The Korea-Japan Festival in Seoul has been held on an annual basis since 2005, “the Year of Korea-Japan Friendship,” with the aim to boost private exchanges between the two countries in various areas. The Festival has taken place in Seoul and Tokyo simultaneously since 2009. (The “Korea-Japan Festival in Tokyo 2017” will take place in Hibiya Park, Tokyo, on September 24 and 25.)

2. Vice Minister Cho watched the cheerleading performance staged by Japanese college students together with Soohorang and Bandabi, the mascots of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. This opening program of the Festival carried significance as an expression of wish for the success of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, as well as a promotional activity for the sporting events.

° The Vice Minister also had a conversation with major relevant figures, including Park Sam-koo and Mikio Sasaki, the heads of the ROK and Japanese festival committees, respectively, as well as Japanese Ambassador to the ROK Yasumasa Nagamine, during which they rooted for the success of the Olympics to be hosted by the two countries, and agreed to continuously promote bilateral friendship and cooperation through people-to-people and cultural exchanges.

3. The Foreign Ministry, as a sponsor of the Korea-Japan Festival, will continue efforts for the event to help the peoples of the two countries understand each other correctly and build close, friendship- and trust-based ties.


* unofficial translation