Korea's foreign minister urges Japan to resolve forced labor issue

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Korea's foreign minister urges Japan to resolve forced labor issue

Published: 19 Feb. 2023, 15:24 Updated: 19 Feb. 2023, 17:17

Foreign Minister Park Jin, right, shakes hands with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi during their meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday. [YONHAP]

Foreign Minister Park Jin in his meeting with the Japanese foreign minister in the German city of Munich on Saturday urged Japan to make a political decision to resolve the forced labor issue that has soured the bilateral ties for years.

"I've said all I can about the main issues," Park told the press after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. "I urged Japan to make a political decision to come up with a sincere response."

After a series of meetings with the Korean victims of forced labor by Japan, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul proposed last month that Korean corporations pitch into a public fund to compensate the victims, as an alternative to liquidating the assets of Japanese corporations embroiled in suits with the victims.

It emphasized, however, that such a solution would only work if there is a "sincere response" from Japan, which could include an official apology from the Japanese government, or active donations by Japanese corporations to the Korea-created fund.

“The ministers noted the ongoing consultations between the two countries’ diplomatic bodies to resolve pending issues and improve relations,” said the Foreign Ministry in a statement after the ministerial meeting on Saturday in Germany, adding that the two agreed to “continue to communicate closely” to reach a resolution on the forced labor issue.

Saturday's meeting was Park and Hayashi’s fifth ministerial summit since the inauguration of the Yoon Suk Yeol government in Seoul last May, and followed numerous working-level meetings between the two countries in recent months over their diplomatic spat centering on the history of Koreans forced to work in Japan during the country's 1910-45 annexation of Korea.

The relations between Seoul and Tokyo soured after the Supreme Court in Korea ruled in favor of Korean victims of forced labor by Japan in 2018.

The Supreme Court on Oct. 30, 2018, ordered Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal, renamed Nippon Steel, to pay 100 million won ($77,125) each to Korean victims of Japanese forced labor during World War II. The Supreme Court made a similar ruling on Nov. 29, 2018 against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

With these rulings, Korea’s top court acknowledged the illegality of Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule and recognized that individuals' rights to compensation had not expired. Japan contends that all compensation issues were settled with a normalization treaty between Japan and Korea signed in 1965.

Both Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi refused to comply with the top court's decisions, and the victims filed another case requesting the liquidation of assets of two Japanese companies to compensate the forced labor victims.

The Supreme Court in Korea has yet to rule on the latest case. Seeing this as a window of opportunity for negotiations with Japan, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul has been holding a series of meetings with the victims and relevant civic groups, and with the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

Some of the victims involved in the suits have strongly protested the proposal by the ministry of creating a Korean corporate fund to compensate them.

As the negotiations hit a snag, officials in the Foreign Ministry in Seoul suggested that “higher-level” negotiations would be needed between the two governments, including between the ministers and the president and prime minister.

The last time President Yoon met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was on the sidelines of an Asean meeting in Cambodia in November 2022. There have been no visits by either the Japanese prime minister to Korea or the Korean president to Japan since 2016.

Talks of normalization of so-called shuttle diplomacy, which would see more frequent visits and meetings between the leaders of Japan, gained political traction in Korea after the Yoon government emphasized boosting security ties with Japan and the United States.

The foreign ministers of the three countries also met on the sidelines of the Munich conference on Saturday, shortly after the North’s firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“My government condemns in the strongest terms North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile launch today, it is a serious provocation that violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions, and escalates tensions on the Korean Peninsula, in the region, and beyond,” Park said in a press conference held jointly with Hayashi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday.

From right, Foreign Minister Park Jin, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during their meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday. [YONHAP]

“We’ve made clear over many, many months that we were prepared to engage with North Korea without any preconditions,” said Blinken in the press meeting. “The response from North Korea has been missile launch after missile launch [...] and so the result of these actions by North Korea is simply to even further solidify the work that we do together, the alliance that we share, and our commitment to the defense of our partners and allies.”

Park had traveled to the Hague, Netherlands, earlier in the week to attend a ministerial conference on artificial intelligence and security, before flying to Munich. He was scheduled to return to Seoul on Monday.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]