One of the winners of this year's Japan Foundation Award said he hopes promoting closer ties between South Korea and Japan will also lead to stronger links between Tokyo and Pyongyang.
"I hope that this win-win situation (improved relations between South Korea and Japan) can also be applied to building Japan's ties with North Korea, and consequently lead to stability in East Asia," Chi Myong Kwan, one of South Korea's top experts on Japan, said Thursday.
Chi, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at Hallym University, received the award for his contribution to improving relations between Japan and South Korea in the fields of history and culture, and for founding South Korea's largest center for Japanese studies.