TOKYO: The Japanese and South Korean governments are considering the idea of Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol visiting a long-established Western-style restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district to eat “omurice,” an omelet with fried rice, after their summit on Thursday, it was learned Tuesday.

The idea is based on Yoon’s eagerness to improve relations between the two countries, according to Japanese and South Korean diplomatic sources.

The South Korean leader has “many (Japanese) dishes in his memory,” as his father once served as a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and he himself has visited Japan many times while working as a South Korean prosecutor, said an aide to Kishida.

Yoon often tells people around him about his memories of pleasant dinners in Tokyo and voices hopes to go there again, the aide added.

Within the Japanese government, however, there are mixed views on the omurice diplomacy idea.

“Cuisine is a tool of diplomacy,” said an official of the prime minister’s office, while noting that nothing has been decided yet on the matter.

Meanwhile, a senior Foreign Ministry official pointed out that the main issue at the Kishida-Yoon summit will be matters related to the wartime labor. “This time, we should proceed steadily, without doing anything tricky,” the official said.

Traditionally, after a summit with a foreign leader, a dinner is held at a location such as the prime minister’s official residence.

A conservative member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party emphasized that there are outstanding bilateral issues including a past incident in which the South Korean military pointed its radar at a Japanese Self-Defense Forces plane.

“Omurice would be good, but we should take what we can at the upcoming summit,” the LDP member stressed.

Kishida is expected to make a careful decision on the matter while examining the agenda of the summit, which has not yet been finalized in detail, and the public’s response to it.

Whether omurice diplomacy will be realized “ultimately depends on the intentions of the two leaders,” a South Korean government source said.

JIJI Press