South Korea, Japan agree to deepen defense ties, expand aerobatic team exchanges and naval rescue drills

South Korea and Japan agreed Sunday to further strengthen bilateral defense exchanges in areas including aerobatic team cooperation between the two air forces, naval search-and-rescue training, and advanced science and technology.

The Ministry of National Defense said in a joint press statement that Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-baek and Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro held bilateral talks at the ministry's compound in Yongsan-gu and reached agreement on those points.

"The two ministers agreed to continue developing exchanges and cooperation between the two countries' aerobatic teams — the Black Eagles and the Blue Impulse — building on opportunities such as the Black Eagles' stopover in Japan, to further advance search-and-rescue training for various maritime accident scenarios, and to pursue bilateral discussions on cooperation in advanced science and technology, including AI," the joint statement said.

The statement added that the two ministers "agreed to strengthen communication and efforts to develop stable, future-oriented South Korea-Japan defense exchange and cooperation through mutual understanding and trust."

The agreement follows an exchange between pilots of the two countries' aerobatic teams on Jan. 28, when South Korea's Black Eagles made their first-ever stopover at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's Naha base in Okinawa Prefecture for a mid-flight refueling. The two sides signaled that such exchanges would not be a one-time event.

However, the Defense Ministry said no decision has been made to regularize the Black Eagles' stopovers and refueling support at Japanese bases.

The two sides also agreed to regularize and further strengthen naval defense cooperation, including building on a search-and-rescue exercise (SAREX) held earlier this month — the first such drill between the two navies in nine years since 2017.

The ministers "agreed to continue cooperating to maintain peace and stability in the region amid a grave security environment," the statement said, adding that they "reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of lasting peace, and agreed to sustain South Korea-Japan and South Korea-US-Japan cooperation."

The question of concluding an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) between South Korea and Japan was not included as a formal agenda item at the talks, sources said. However, given Japan's strong and persistent desire to conclude such a pact with South Korea, the Japanese side may have raised the issue during the meeting.

In his opening remarks, Ahn said, "As the saying goes, even a path that doesn't exist will form if you walk it often enough — I feel that a new path in the South Korea-Japan relationship is taking shape," adding that he hoped discussions on global security issues and bilateral defense cooperation would advance further.

After the talks, Ahn took Koizumi on a tour of the Korea Defense Media Agency and presented him with a framed gift: a Defense Daily article featuring coverage of Koizumi's father, former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, during his two visits to South Korea in 2002 and 2005. The articles included photographs of the elder Koizumi with then-Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, respectively.

The two ministers shared lunch and then traveled in the afternoon to Dongdaemun-gu in Seoul — Ahn's constituency — where they held a meeting with young people from both countries and played a friendly table tennis match.

The outing mirrored a similar schedule from January, when Ahn visited Yokosuka — Koizumi's constituency — during his trip to Japan and the two played a friendly table tennis match there.

The two ministers told the young South Korean and Japanese participants that they should build friendly relations grounded in mutual trust, and that the bilateral relationship should develop into one that is mutually beneficial and future-oriented.

During the friendly match, the two ministers paired up as a team to play doubles against young participants from both countries, the Defense Ministry said.

Koizumi arrived in South Korea on Saturday for a two-day visit. The trip is part of ongoing shuttle defense diplomacy between the two countries' defense ministers, following Ahn's visit to Japan in January.

On Saturday, Koizumi paid his respects at the Seoul National Cemetery in Dongjak-gu and joined Ahn on a visit to the Black Eagles aerobatic team unit at the Air Force base in Wonju.

Sunday's meeting was the sixth between Ahn and Koizumi, coming about a month after their previous bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on May 30.