Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have been unfrozen. In fact, Japan and South Korea have returned to jointly talking about defense. This hasn't happened since August 2015. Nine years after the last meeting, the two governments have announced the resumption of dialogue and the reopening of confidential communication channels between their respective armed forces.

The reopening of the communication line between the two countries was officially announced in the last few hours. This came at the end of a meeting that took place in Tokyo between Atsushi Ando, Deputy Director General of the Office of the Ministry of Defense of Japan, and Lee Seung-buhm, Director General of the Office of International Policy of the Ministry of Defense of Korea of the South.

This initiative was announced in June 2024 during a meeting in Singapore between the respective defense ministers: the Japanese Minoru Kihara and the South Korean Shin Won-sik. The objective of this agreement is to avoid possible diplomatic military incidents: as happened in 2018 when a South Korean warship directed its attack devices against a Japanese navy aircraft.