The author, Gong Ro Myung, 74, is a former foreign minister of South Korea, the Korean chairman of the Japan-South Korea Forum, and president of the Asahi Shimbun Asia Network. He also served as South Korea's ambassador to the USSR, Russia and Japan.

The reign of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, which was the third longest in the postwar history of Japan, has finally come to an end and the cabinet led by Shinzo Abe, the first prime minister from the post-WWII generation, has come into being.

This reminds me of the fact that, in South Korea, President Roh Moo Hyun, who was born in 1946, took the helm of state in 2003. It is a government brought about by the so-called "386 generation," namely the body of people in their 30s who were born in the 1960s and university students in the 1980s. The social discord South Korean society has faced thereafter looks like an ideological confrontation between a leftist-oriented younger generation and other groups.

Compared with that, Japan's new regime belongs to the same Liberal Democratic Party and can basically be viewed as an extension of the Koizumi cabinet. However, with regard to Japan's relations with South Korea and China, which grew worse because of Prime Minister Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, many people expect a new phase to come about through the inauguration of the new cabinet.

In relation to the Yasukuni issue that is at the crux of stagnant South Korea-Japan and Japan-China relations, Prime Minister Abe took the stance, at a public forum during the party presidential campaign, that he would "neither clearly say whether or not he had visited the shrine, nor whether or not he will visit it." As far as this question is concerned, he is likely to keep addressing it with what is known as an NCND (neither confirm nor deny) stance.

If Prime Minister Abe, while taking such a stance, actually refrains from visiting the Yasukuni Shrine (where convicted Class-A war criminals are honored), it may be possible to seal off the issue. More than anyone else, Mr. Abe is the very person who has closely witnessed the process through which Prime Minister Koizumi's Yasukuni visits have brought about the present stalled state of relationships with South Korea and China. It is unimaginable that Mr. Abe would further worsen the situation through making visits himself.

Based on my understanding as stated above, I hope the South Korean government invites the new Japanese prime minister to visit South Korea at an early date when it sends a message of congratulations on the inauguration of Japan's new prime minister.

When we look back at the new prime minister's lineage, there are many names that have had close connections with South Korea.

Former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, the maternal grandfather of Mr. Abe, cabled a congratulatory message to the then South Korea President Syngman Rhee (Lee Sung-man) on his birthday, when no diplomatic relations had as yet been established between the two countries. It was an attempt to resume bilateral meetings which had been suspended for more than three years. He also dispatched Mr. Kazuo Yatsugi, an influential figure in the political world, to President Rhee as his personal envoy in an effort to improve the South Korea-Japan relationship. Normalization of the bilateral relationship was achieved later by Mr. Kishi's younger brother, former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato.

As a reflection of the above background, I would like Prime Minister Abe to make South Korea the first country he visits.

In early 1983, in order to resolve a tense South Korea-Japan relationship over the question of economic cooperation, the then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone chose South Korea as the first country to visit after assuming office. It is a well-known anecdote that, when he visited the Blue House presidential office, Mr. Nakasone sang a Korean song, "The Man in the Yellow Shirt," in the Korean language.

Former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who brought about the collapse of the so-called "1955 regime," also made South Korea the first country to visit after assuming office. He appeared on TV in Kyongju, an ancient city with a 1,000-year history, to talk directly to the South Korean people. He admitted that Japan's colonial rule, under which Koreans were forced to change their names to Japanese ones, was a mistake and said, "we apologize," speaking in an extremely sincere, yet dignified, manner. This greatly impressed many South Korean people.

After seeing this TV broadcast, popular writer Han Woon Sa, who was called into the Japanese Army as a student soldier during the war, wrote along the following lines in the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper: "I felt as if a load had been taken off my mind in a single stroke."

According to South Korean newspaper reports, U.S. President George W. Bush, during a recent South Korea-U.S. summit, said that he hoped that peace and security among Northeastern Asian states would be enhanced through improved relations. By "among Northeastern Asian states," the president meant the "South Korea-Japan relationship," a newspaper said. This can be taken as a message calling for reinforcement of the traditional cooperative relationships among the three countries of South Korea, Japan and the United States through smooth dialogue between top South Korean and Japanese leaders.

South Korea and Japan are confronting a range of bilateral issues but it is essential, first of all, for the countries' top leaders to have face-to-face talks. There will be great expectations that the inauguration of the Abe cabinet will represent a turning point.