Japanese foreign minister pledges 'swift' sharing of monitoring results

Diplomacy

Japanese foreign minister pledges 'swift' sharing of monitoring results

Published: 13 Jul. 2023, 18:00

Foreign Minister Park Jin, left, shakes hands with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi prior to their meeting on the sidelines of the Asean Regional Forum in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday. [NEWS1]

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said his country will continue to share updates from the monitoring of Japan's release of treated radioactive water into the sea.

Speaking shortly after Hayashi's meeting with Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin in Indonesia on Thursday, a high-ranking Korean Foreign Ministry official told the press in Jakarta, "Minister Park reiterated the Korean government’s request, also shared at the head of state level, that Japan immediately cease the water’s discharge if a [radiation] level beyond the international standard is detected in the monitoring process."

The official said Hayashi responded that Tokyo would "speedily" share the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s monitoring results.

A massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011, causing a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). Some 1.25 million tons of contaminated water are stored in over 1,000 tanks there, enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Japan announced in 2021 its plan to release the treated radioactive water over a period of some 30 years, a scheme recently ratified by the IAEA as conforming with international safety standards.

The Korean government also upheld the IAEA’s assessment, despite persistent opposition to the plan from fishing communities and civic groups, as well as from the liberal Democratic Party (DP).

Several DP members were in Tokyo earlier this week to lead protests with civic groups and local politicians throughout the city, including in front of the residence of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Kishida himself brought up the Fukushima issue in his summit meeting with President Yoon Suk Yeol in Vilnius on Wednesday. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the NATO summit, to which both leaders were invited.

The foreign ministerial meeting, held on the sidelines of the Asean Regional Forum on Thursday, lasted 45 minutes, according to the official. It was the seventh meeting of the two foreign ministers since the inauguration of the Yoon administration last year.

The two did not, however, discuss seafood imports, according to the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.

Fishing communities in both Japan and Korea have voiced especially strong opposition to the plan. Korea has banned imports of seafood from the Fukushima region since 2013.

The two also addressed growing security threats from North Korea.

“Park strongly condemned North Korea's long-range ballistic missile launch on the 12th,” another Foreign Ministry official told the press in Jakarta on Thursday. “The two agreed on the importance of cooperation to create a strategic environment whereby the North has no choice but to return to the path of denuclearization.”

Park, in Jakarta this week to attend the Asean Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit and the Asean Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting, also held sideline meetings with the foreign ministers of India and Australia on Thursday.

In his meeting with India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Thursday, Park was said to have stressed continued cooperation with India, especially in light of the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the South Asian country and Korea, according to the Foreign Ministry.

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