Arroyo to visit Korea, Japan

President Arroyo has accepted an invitation for her to embark on a state visit to South Korea and another working trip to Japan.

Malacañang has, in fact, started the preparations for the President’s state visit to Seoul, South Korea, which comes after her state visit to the United States in the second week of May, The STAR learned yesterday.

The President will resume her scheduled foreign trips after she postponed last month previously set state visits to three European capitals and the US due to the US-led war in Iraq.

Palace sources told The STAR that the President will discuss with her South Korean counterpart Roh Mooh-hyun "issues of mutual interest" to both governments.

On top of the agenda of the talks between the two leaders is the security situation in the region due to tension in the Korean peninsula, said the Palace official.

North Korea has pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has admitted, in response to accusations from the United States last October, that it has a nuclear weapons development program.

"Of particular concern is the developing situation in the Korean peninsula," a Palace source said.

North Korea, together with Iraq and Iran, has been tagged by US President Georscribed as the "axis of evil" — countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction.

"So it is likely that the Iraq situation as well as the war against terrorism would also be part of the official talks between the two presidents, since the Philippines and South Korea are close allies in the region," the same Palace sources said.

Mrs. Arroyo earlier joined the call of the world community for North Korea to return to the negotiating table for talks on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

However, a major breakthrough emerged early this week — there are reports that US officials will start negotiations in Beijing with North Korea and China to try to resolve the nuclear standoff through multilateral dialogues on the dispute.

While on a three-day state visit in Seoul, Mrs. Arroyo and Roh are expected to witness at least three bilateral agreements, the Palace sources added.

One is a treaty on criminal issues between the two countries and the second, a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of two vocational training centers in Luzon and the Visayas by the Korean Organization for International Cooperation Agency.

The third agreement will deal with the development of energy sources in the Philippines. South Korea has a significant number of power projects in the country.

From Seoul, the President will fly to Tokyo for a speaking engagement on June 5 organized by Nikkei.

Mrs. Arroyo has time and again defended her frequent visits to Japan, citing that it is the prime source of official development assistance as well as investments and tourism in the country.

She went on a working visit to Tokyo twice in 2001 and twice last year, upon the invitations issued by major Japanese media organization.

Mrs. Arroyo’s most recent trip to Japan was on a state visit from Dec. 10 to 14 last year.

Mrs. Arroyo’s first foreign trip this year took her to Kuwait for an overnight visit last February, a month before the war erupted in Iraq, to check on the Philippine government’s contingency plans for the 1.4 million Filipino overseas workers in the Middle East.

The President went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last month, where she spoke at the Leaders’ Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement to make last-ditch appeals for a peaceful resolution to calls for Iraq’s disarming of its weapons of mass destruction.