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| Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, right, shakes hands with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshima Hayashi during their bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Saturday. Yonhap |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Foreign Minister Park Jin met his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi in Munich, Germany, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Saturday (local time). He urged the Japanese side to make a political decision on the issue of wartime forced labor compensation.
"We have talked about all the major issues," Park told reporters after a 35-minute meeting with Hayashi, urging the Japanese side to make a political decision for a sincere response.
"We understand each other's positions and now we need political commitment," Park added.
Minister Park's calls for a "political decision" from the Japanese side suggests that the diplomatic authorities are done exploring possible avenues for agreement.
A foreign ministry official explained that given the sensitivity of the issue for both nations, the importance of their meeting was that Park conveyed South Korea's position clearly and openly to Japan's foreign minister.
In addition to the wartime forced labor issue, the two countries' top diplomats also discussed security threats posed by North Korea as the country fired another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) right before their meeting, Saturday.
According to the ministry, the two ministers emphasized that North Korea's provocations will face a strong and united response from the international community. They vowed to strengthen trilateral security cooperation among Korea, Japan and the U.S.
After the bilateral meeting, Park took part in a trilateral meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japan's Hayashi and strongly condemned North Korea's missile launch.
Korea and Japan have been running parallel on the issue of wartime forced labor for decades. In 2019, Korea's Supreme Court ruled that Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel Corp. should pay compensation to surviving South Korean victims of wartime forced labor.
However, Japan claims that all reparations coming from its 1910-45 occupation of Korea were resolved under a 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two nations.
Despite President Yoon Suk Yeol's attempts since taking office last May to enhance security cooperation with Japan in response to North Korea's provocations and threats, the issue has remained a persistent obstacle in improving relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
The Korean government proposed the creation of a foundation to assist victims of Japanese forced labor and requested that Japanese companies contribute to the fund, which would be used by the Korean foundation to compensate the victims.
However, Japan is unwilling to participate in the fund, as Japanese companies donating to the foundation could be perceived as accepting the compensation judgment of Korea's Supreme Court.
The two countries recently elevated the level of discussions to higher-level diplomats as the negotiations near their final stage.
Earlier last week, First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong met his Japanese counterpart during consultations in Washington, D.C., and also discussed the forced labor issue, but the two sides found discrepancies in their views on crucial matters.
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