South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back, right, visits the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's base in Yokosuka, Japan, Jan. 30, 2026. (South Korea Ministry of National Defense)
TOKYO — The defense ministers for Japan and South Korea, facing common challenges from North Korea, agreed last week to resume naval search-and-rescue exercises paused nine years ago as part of improving defense cooperation.
Shinjiro Koizumi and Ahn Gyu-back met Friday at the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force base in Yokosuka city.
“The two ministers agreed on the importance of steadily promoting Japan-[South Korea] defense cooperation and exchanges,” said the joint statement posted Friday on the Japanese Ministry of Defense website.
Koizumi and Ahn agreed to resume a joint humanitarian search-and-rescue exercise that had been paused for almost a decade, the statement said.
The training took place 10 times between 1999 and 2017, then was paused following a series of incidents that strained relations between the two countries.
In 2018, for example, Japan’s Ministry of Defense said a South Korean navy destroyer pointed a fire-control radar at a Japanese patrol aircraft off the Noto Peninsula, a move the ministry described as extremely hazardous with potential, unintended consequences.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said the destroyer was on a search-and-rescue operation and accused the Japanese patrol aircraft of making a dangerous low-altitude overflight of its ship.
Koizumi and Ahn appeared to have set aside their countries’ differences in pursuit of mutual interests. Both Japan and South Korea are on the potential receiving end of North Korean missiles.
As part of their session Friday the two played ping-pong.
“To steadily promote cooperation and exchanges between the defense authorities, Minister Ahn and I agreed to hold annual reciprocal visits and defense ministerial meetings, like today’s ping- pong game, that will continue to rally,” Koizumi told reporters following the meeting.
Ahn suggested Koizumi visit South Korea to continue the “momentum of mutual exchange,” according to a Friday text message from a Ministry of National Defense spokesman.
“He said it was encouraging that difficulties were resolved through active communication and hoped that the two countries would become not only close in distance, but close in all manners,” the message said.
The ministers agreed to further visits and annual defense ministerial meetings to strengthen communication, according to the joint statement. They also agreed to further interaction and personnel exchanges between their militaries.
The ministers also agreed to discuss cooperation in advanced science and technology fields, such as artificial intelligence, unmanned systems and space, from the perspective of “developing a future-oriented and mutually beneficial defense cooperation relationship between Japan and South Korea,” Koizumi told reporters.
They also agreed to cooperate to maintain peace and stability in the region amid an increasingly severe security environment and reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to the statement.
