South Korean President Lee Myung Bak plans to make his first overseas trip since his inauguration last month to the United States and Japan in April, his office said Wednesday, according to dpa. Lee is to hold talks with US President George W Bush at the Camp David presidential retreat in the state of Maryland during his April 15-19 visit to the United States, the presidential office in Seoul said. The primary topics on the agenda are to be the strengthening of the US-South Korean alliance, the signed but not-yet-ratified free trade agreement between the two nations and work to end North Korea's nuclear programmes, the office said. The Camp David visit on April 18 and 19 would see Lee become the first South Korean president to be a guest at the retreat outside Washington. Before he returns to South Korea, the conservative politician who won election in December plans a stop in Japan. On April 20, he is to meet Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Tokyo with the main topics of their talks to be the resumption of free trade negotiations and cooperation on environmental issues, Lee's office said. On his February 25 inauguration, Lee met with Fukuda in Seoul, and the two leaders agreed to resume the shuttle diplomacy that had seen the heads of South Korea's and Japan's governments exchange regular visits. The visits were suspended by Seoul in 2005 over visits by Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japanese war dead, including World War II war criminals, as well as Japanese claims to islets in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese. They are also claimed by South Korea.
