Japan's defense minister skips Seoul Security Dialogue after Yasukuni visit

Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro will not attend this year's Seoul Security Dialogue, the annual multilateral security forum hosted by South Korea's Ministry of National Defense — a departure from last year — it was confirmed Friday. His absence is widely attributed to a chill in Korea-Japan defense ties following his visit to Yasukuni Shrine last month.

Ando Atsushi, a defense counselor at Japan's Ministry of Defense who holds a vice-ministerial rank, is set to represent Japan at the Seoul Security Dialogue, scheduled for Monday through Wednesday. Last year, then-Defense Minister Nakatani Gen attended the forum in person, making this year's lower-level representation a step back. Before Nakatani's attendance last year, Japan had typically sent a defense counselor to the dialogue.

Asked whether the Defense Ministry had extended an invitation to the Japanese defense minister as it did last year, the ministry said it "delivered an invitation to Japan's Ministry of Defense to attend the Seoul Security Dialogue."

Officials within both governments weighed the possibility of Koizumi attending the Seoul Security Dialogue before the final decision was made. The specific reasons for his absence have not been disclosed, but analysts say it is likely connected to the recent cooling in defense ties between the two countries.

Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine last month is seen as a key factor behind that chill. On Aug. 15 — Liberation Day in South Korea and the anniversary of Japan's World War II defeat — Koizumi became the first sitting Japanese defense minister in two years to visit the shrine, which enshrines Class-A war criminals.

The South Korean government views a visit to Yasukuni by a sitting defense minister more gravely than visits by other cabinet members. In response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense each summoned the Japanese Embassy's senior diplomat and defense attaché to lodge formal protests. The Defense Ministry at the time expressed "serious concern," saying the visit "runs directly counter to the efforts of both South Korea and Japan to build a forward-looking relationship."

Defense cooperation between the two countries had been gaining momentum this year, with a series of ministerial exchanges — Defense Minister Ahn's visit to Japan in January, a bilateral defense ministers' meeting on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in late May, and Koizumi's bilateral visit to South Korea in June. Koizumi's Yasukuni visit has raised concerns that this momentum could now stall.

Meanwhile, the 15th Seoul Security Dialogue will be held Monday through Wednesday at The Grand Lotte Seoul in Jung-gu, Seoul. Launched in 2012 under the auspices of the Defense Ministry, the forum was elevated to ministerial level in 2023 and has become one of the region's leading high-level multilateral security gatherings.