Korea, Japan inching back to intelligence-sharing pact

Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong, right, and Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori, left, during a meeting in Seoul on June 8. [YONHAP]

Top figures in Korea and Japan are expressing interest in returning to an intelligence sharing pact that was suspended in 2019 over bitter historical disputes.

Soon after Korea’s Foreign Minister Park Jin said in a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Monday that Korea wants the General Security of Military Information Agreement (Gsomia) “normalized as soon as possible.” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno followed with a similar comment.

Calling the pact mutually beneficial, Matsuno said in a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that the agreement would strengthen bilateral security cooperation and contribute to peace and stability in East Asia, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

On the same day, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi expressed in another news conference his hopes for increased communication with Korea on military intelligence.

The Gsomia was established in 2016 and renewed annually through 2018.

In August 2019, the Moon Jae-in administration announced its decision to withdraw from the bilateral agreement in response to Japanese restrictions on exports to Korea of industrial materials needed to make semiconductors and other electronic parts.

Although Tokyo denied it, the export controls were seen as reactions to court rulings in Korea forcing Japanese companies to compensate Korean forced laborers from the last century. Korea retaliated by placing its own export restrictions on Japan.

The forced labor issue dates back to Japanese annexation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Millions of Koreans were subjected to forced labor by imperial Japan, especially in the years leading up to and during World War II.

Japan has protested the Korean court rulings, claiming all compensation issues related to colonial rule were resolved through a 1965 treaty normalizing bilateral relations.

Instead of going ahead with the withdrawal from Gsomia, however, the Moon administration in November 2019 decided to conditionally suspend the agreement.

When questioned about the trade spat, Park said in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on June 10 said that the two countries should “work on issues in a step-by-step manner, starting with ones that can be solved first.”

Members of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s foreign policy team, including the president himself, have stressed repeatedly the need to strengthen trilateral security cooperation among Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.

“In order to deal with the threat from North Korea, we need to have policy coordination and a sharing of information between Korea and Japan and with the United States,” Park said in a joint press conference with Blinken on Monday.

North Korea has tested 31 ballistic missiles since Jan. 1, a record number in a year, including an intercontinental ballistic missile on May 25. The last time it came close was in 2019 when it tested 25.

Recent satellite images of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, the site for all of its six nuclear tests, suggested the regime is gearing up for a seventh.

BY PARK HYUN-JU, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]