Bolton to make 2-day visit to S.Korea: Seoul

SEOUL - US National Security Adviser John Bolton will make a two-day visit to South Korea from Tuesday to discuss the Korean Peninsula situations, the presidential Blue House of South Korea said Sunday.

Blue House spokesperson Ko Min-jung told reporters that Chung Eui-yong, top national security adviser for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, will meet with Bolton in Seoul on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Chung and Bolton will consult on major bilateral issues, including ways to build the permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula through the peninsula's complete denuclearization and to solidify the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

Bolton will also have meetings with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo of South Korea during his two-day trip to Seoul.

Bolton's visit would come amid the escalating trade row between South Korea and Japan. Japan tightened regulation early this month on its export to South Korea of materials vital to produce memory chips and display panels, which are the mainstay of the South Korean economy.

Japan's export restriction came in protest against the South Korean top court's rulings that ordered some of Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel and the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries among others, to pay compensation to the South Korean victims who were forced into hard labor without pay during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that he would get involved in the Seoul-Tokyo friction if both sides want him to do, indicating his possible involvement in the dispute.

According to the Blue House, Moon asked Trump to pay attention to the recent South Korea-Japan conflict during their summit in Seoul on June 30.