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The Defense Ministry on Monday announced it is working on the details of a comprehensive military cooperation agreement with Japan. A ministry official said in order to upgrade military cooperation between the two countries, which is minimal to date, the two governments are pushing a comprehensive military cooperation agreement to be signed by their defense ministers.
The official said the agreement includes exchange of military personnel and joint search-and-rescue naval exercises in humanitarian causes. The agreement will be the first codified agreement on military cooperation since the end of Japanese colonial rule in Korea. It reflects the Lee Myung-bak administration¡¯s pragmatic policy that aims to open a new era of bilateral relations by stressing future goals over the fraught past. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Lee agreed to forge a more ¡°future-oriented¡± relationship during Lee¡¯s state visit to Japan earlier this month.
Japan initially proposed the deal in 2005, but Korea stalled due to territorial disputes over the Dokdo islets and the Exclusive Economic Zones surrounding them. The agreement is expected to be signed when Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba visits Korea sometime this year. It is the Japanese minister¡¯s turn to visit Korea, as the last meeting of defense ministers of the two countries was held in February 2007, when then-Korean defense minister Kim Jang-soo visited Japan and met his counterpart Fumio Kyuma.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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