Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi will skip next week's Seoul Defense Dialogue, officials and media reports said Friday, amid signs that defense exchanges between South Korea and Japan may be losing momentum following Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine last month.
Japan will instead be represented by Atsushi Ando, a vice-minister-level official at Japan's Ministry of Defense, according to South Korea's Ministry of National Defense.
"This year's Seoul Defense Dialogue is expected to draw about 1,000 participants from 67 countries and international organizations, including four defense ministers (from the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Uganda), as well as vice defense ministers from six countries," Seoul's Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The 2026 Seoul Defense Dialogue takes place Monday through Wednesday in Seoul.
The representation marks a downgrade from last year, when then-Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani attended the forum in person. Before Nakatani's participation, however, Japan had frequently sent senior defense officials at the vice-minister level to the annual gathering.
Asked whether Koizumi had been invited, an official from South Korea's Defense Ministry who requested anonymity said the ministry had โdelivered an invitation to Japan's Ministry of Defense to attend the Seoul Defense Dialogue.โ
According to Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Koizumi initially indicated that he intended to attend the Seoul Defense Dialogue but later reversed course.
Japan's Defense Ministry said the decision was made after โcomprehensively taking into account the minister's schedule and other factors.โ
The relatively limited number of ministerial-level officials attending this year's forum is also believed to have factored into the decision, with a Japanese Defense Ministry official telling the Asahi Shimbun that โfewer ministerial-level officials from other countries are attending this year.โ
His decision comes after his Aug. 15 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine strained a recent period of growing defense exchanges between Seoul and Tokyo.
The shrine honors Japan's war dead, including 14 Class-A war criminals convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. It has long been a source of friction between Japan and neighboring countries that suffered under its colonial rule and wartime aggression.
Koizumi visited the shrine on Aug. 15, which marks Korea's Liberation Day and the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. It was the first visit by a sitting Japanese defense minister on the date in two years, following then-Defense Minister Minoru Kihara's visit in 2024.
Seoul lodged a formal protest immediately afterward. The Foreign Ministry summoned a senior diplomat from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, while the Defense Ministry separately called in Japan's defense attache.
Seoul's Defense Ministry also expressed โserious concern,โ saying the visit โruns directly counter to the efforts of South Korea and Japan to build a future-oriented relationship.โ
The development comes after the two countries had stepped up high-level defense exchanges this year.
South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back visited Japan in January, followed by talks between the two countries' defense chiefs on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in late May. Koizumi then traveled to South Korea for a bilateral visit in June.
The series of meetings had fueled expectations that Seoul and Tokyo were moving toward more regular defense exchanges, but Koizumi's Yasukuni visit has raised questions over whether that momentum can be sustained.
Launched by South Korea's Defense Ministry in 2012, the SDD is an annual high-level multilateral security forum aimed at contributing to peace on the Korean Peninsula and promoting regional security cooperation. It was elevated to a ministerial-level forum in 2023 and marks its 15th edition this year.
