The leaders of Japan and South Korea pledged on Friday to work on new cooperation, including on immigration procedures and the evacuation of citizens in emergencies, at a summit that marked a period of warming bilateral ties fuelled by their personal relationship.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Seoul earlier in the day for a farewell meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. Kishida will leave his post as prime minister in early October after the election of the new leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party later this month.

Over the past two years, we have done our best with a reliable partner like President Yoon, who has a strong desire to strengthen bilateral relations, and we feel that we have turned a new page in Japan-South Korea relations. Both Japan and South Korea should continue this progress in the future.

Yoon also stressed the need to continue efforts to improve relations.

“It is important to continue the positive momentum of bilateral cooperation that Prime Minister Kishida and I have built,” Yoon said, according to a statement from his office. Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Seoul and Tokyo, and Yoon said he hoped to take the relationship to a “new level” in 2025.

Kishida and Yoon agreed to start studying in detail ways to facilitate immigration procedures. They also reaffirmed that Japan and South Korea will work together to evacuate their citizens in case of emergencies in third countries.

They also discussed security issues related to North Korea and said they would continue to work with their common ally, the United States, on Pyongyang and Russia.

This is the prime minister’s second visit to South Korea for a bilateral summit with Yoon during his tenure. In May last year, Kishida became the first Japanese prime minister to attend a bilateral summit in South Korea in 12 years.

Kishida announced in August that he would not run for another term in the LDP leadership race.

The importance of Japan-South Korea relations will remain unchanged in the future,” Kishida said, adding, “I will do my best to make Japan-South Korea relations more solid and broad-based no matter what position I assume”.

The US factor in bilateral relations

Kishida and Yoon have joined forces to bring the two historically rival countries closer together, with the support and encouragement of the United States.

The conservative Yoon took office in May 2022, less than a year after Kishida’s inauguration nearly three years ago, and has called for a “future-oriented” rebuilding of the long-divided bilateral relationship with Japan.

Analysts say cooperation between the two East Asian countries will continue after Kishida’s departure.

“While Prime Minister Kishida deserves credit for breaking the ice with Seoul, I don’t see the continuation of Japan-South Korea cooperation as dependent on his presence,” Rob York, director of regional affairs at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum think-tank, told Nikkei Asia.

“The current government in Seoul has devoted much of its agenda to enhancing its diplomatic standing within the US-led order, and the US will continue to encourage this cooperation,” York said.

The two leaders held their first summit when Yoon travelled to Tokyo in March 2023. Before travelling to Japan as the first South Korean president to attend a bilateral summit in 12 years, Yoon announced a plan to pave the way for a new beginning between the two Asian countries and staunch US allies.

At the heart of this vision was the creation of a fund, with donations from private companies, to compensate South Koreans who were forced to work for Japanese companies during the Second World War. The issue of financial compensation for the workers has long been a source of tension between Seoul and Tokyo, with the workers, their descendants and some civil society groups insisting on a formal payment by the Japanese government.

Tokyo, on the other hand, insisted that such wartime and colonial-era issues were settled in a 1965 agreement under which Japan provided financial aid and the two sides established formal diplomatic relations. Japan ruled the Korean peninsula from 1910 until its defeat in World War II in 1945.

Yoon’s plan drew criticism from the country’s left-wing opposition and civil society groups, but the two sides continued to increase trade and security cooperation in the months that followed. Seoul and Tokyo lifted trade restrictions imposed because of historical disputes between them.

In August last year, Kishida and Yoon hosted a summit with US President Joe Biden near Washington, which resulted in the three countries deciding to work together.

In a joint statement, they pledged to ‘operationalise’ the real-time exchange of missile warning data.

Washington, which welcomes the ‘friendship’ between Seoul and Tokyo, sees the two countries and their reconciliation as critical to its military and security strategy of containing China’s influence in the region, and is working hard to promote this unity.

It has been reported that the Taliban in Afghanistan uses female spies to identify and punish women who do not comply with the new law of the ministry of vice and virtue. According to the source, some women find offenders in social networks and cities in exchange for money, some out of compulsion and some willingly and introduce them to the Taliban officials of the vice and virtue ministry.

It has been reported that those women who willingly spy for the Taliban, had a vision to see a healthy society where no women should go against the law of vice and virtue. These female spies are working in order to stop any women from becoming “public propriety” and provide such a society where every woman should live in full dignity.

In a conversation with Harici, one of these female “spies” said that women must stay at home. “Real freedom is for women to stay at home, take care and raise their children and most importantly serve their husbands,” she said.

She furthered that “women should not worry about anything”, and they should only work to “keep their husbands happy” and make all out efforts to raise their children in the “most proper way in accordance with the teaching of Islam.”

“We are working for the betterment of our society, and women must be protected. Women should stay at home, and this is better for them,” she said without giving further details.

Are women spying for the Taliban in exchange for money?

A female teacher in Kabul, said that if women spy for the Taliban in exchange for money or because of coercion, it is absolutely understandable because many women are jobless, and they need money. But she questioned those women who willingly worked for the Taliban, saying “there is no difference between these women and male Taliban members who are hell-bent on stopping girls from going to schools and women from the workplace.”

The teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that “as much as we fight with the male Taliban, we also must fight with the female members to secure our rights in the society.”
She said that there are many women who wholeheartedly accept the Taliban’s “reactionary ideology” and call protesting women “prostitutes”. This is not a good statement coming from a woman to another woman. The teacher said that the protesting women want their rights to education and work. “I am a teacher, but I can’t go out to purchase essential necessities because I am no longer able to talk with the shopper. My vice is hurting the Taliban, and this is forbidden for me to speak with a shopkeeper. This is not rational, and this is not my religion at all,” she lamented.

She furthered, “the daughter of our Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) had appeared in public and delivered speeches. No Muslim came up to complain about this at that time. But now the Taliban has a problem with my voice. This is not the true teaching of Islam. Taliban are far away from real rule and regulation of Islam,” she complained.

Taliban through religious schools willing to produce such a woman who accepts whatever the Taliban says without any arguments

Another female Kabul resident said that Taliban through “religious schools” are willing to produce such a woman who accepts whatever the Taliban says “without buts and ifs”.

“Women are human beings just like men. Women also desire to go to the parks, restaurants, and other areas for picnic purposes along with their male family members. What is wrong in this,” she questioned.
At the same time, women are very optimistic and simply believe whatever they read or listen to. “Religious schools are created for this reason that girls should be raised in such a way that they are ready to become sexual slaves of men and even commit suicide attacks in order to implement Islamic Sharia, though it is not the true Islamic teachings,” she added.

At the outset, when the women started marching in protest against the restrictions imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, soon the Taliban gathered some women dressed in black in support of their policies to show that they have many supporters among the women segment of the Afghan society.

Indeed, the Taliban have a lot of influence among the Afghan people, and there is no doubt about this. It has been nearly three years since they were in power and the regional countries, even the Western countries, apparently accepted them. If anyone claims that the Taliban is just a mercenary or a proxy group, and that the people hate it, they have a fatal delusion that needs to be cured.

The Taliban has immense influence among Afghans, including women

While the conspiracy theory may hide a part of the reality itself, a reality that has not yet been fully publicized and for this reason it is exaggerated or, on the contrary, there are many doubts about it. But since it only highlights the external factors of crises and disasters and cannot properly root the internal factors of crises, the theory could be rejected.

The fact is that the Taliban have a lot of influence among a section of the people, and no one can deny that women are included among these people.

The severe misogyny that the Taliban has ruled over Afghanistan does not in any way make us claim that the Taliban is an all-male group, and women are luckily not members of them.

It is not necessary that someone should officially become a member of the Taliban. The Taliban believe in “extremist Islamic ideology” and without doubt anyone who believes in this extremist ideology is considered a Talib, be it a woman or a man.

The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital city, Kabul that killed at least six people and wounded several others.

The IS claimed that the attacker waited near the main gate of the Attorney General’s Office in Kabul and detonated his explosive vest in front of the vehicle of the employees. In the statement, IS claimed that over 45 people, including Taliban members, were killed and wounded in the bombing.

“The attack came in retaliation for Muslim prisoners in Taliban prisons, especially after their transfer to the notorious (Bagram) prison, in a repeat of the American era and its practices against prisoners,” IS said in a statement.

Bagram base was first built by the Russian forces

Originally the Bagram base was first built by the Russian forces when they occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, but then came under the control of the US forces when they entered Afghanistan in 2001. After the Taliban took over power on 15 August 2021, they took control of the base and Daesh claimed that Taliban were treating “Muslim prisoners” in Bagram prison, evoking memories of the US era and its actions against detainees.

According to Reuters, in the early years of the Afghan war under President George W. Bush, the CIA used Bagram as a “black site” detention centre for terrorism suspects, subjecting them to abuse that President Barack Obama would later acknowledge as torture.

In contrast to the Daesh claim, the Taliban Ministry of Interior confirmed the dead of six people, and the injuries of another 13 people, according to Kabul Police Spokesman Khalid Zadran.

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan had called the Kabul attack as “shocking” and called for accountability.

In a post on X, Bennett condemned the violence, stating that “nothing justifies such violence” and emphasized the need for a full investigation and a fair trial to hold those responsible to account.

IS waged an insurgency against Taliban  

Since the start of Taliban ruling in Afghanistan in 2021 following the withdrawal of US troops after 20 years of occupation, the IS waged an insurgency against the Taliban, who they see as their enemies.

Only not in Afghanistan, the IS increased its attacks, but also IS claimed a number of attacks abroad, including a stabbing rampage in Germany, a concert hall attack in Moscow and a memorial bombing in Iran.

In Afghanistan, IS remained active, regularly targeting civilians, foreigners and Taliban officials with gun and bomb attacks and it has been very deadly.

The last deadly attack carried out by IS was in Kandahar city in March in which over 20 people were killed and dozens others received injuries.

Kandahar is considered as the Taliban’s historic stronghold and the IS bomber struck a group of people waiting outside the Kabul Bank.

In 2022, IS suicide bombers killed 53 people, including 46 girls, at an education center in Kabul.

However, the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had recently said that IS existed in Afghanistan before but the Taliban had suppressed them very hard and denied the existence of such a group in the country.