Compromise deal being discussed on forced labor row

Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, left, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at the latter's residence in Tokyo on Oct. 24. Yonhap

By Lee Min-hyung, Park Ji-won

SEOUL/TOKYO ― Japan offered “a couple ideas and suggestions” to South Korea for a possible compromise deal regarding compensation for wartime forced labor as one way to resolve the ongoing bilateral feud, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Thursday.

“Japan has made some suggestions (on ways to resolve the row), and it is untrue that Tokyo did nothing (to find the middle ground),” Lee told reporters upon arriving at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

During his visit to Tokyo, the prime minister held a 21-minute talk with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Abe's office. They agreed to keep talking about their trade dispute and historical issues, though the meeting didn't produce any announcements.

PM Lee declined to comment on the specific suggestions Japan offered to South Korea. Earlier reports said South Korea suggested the idea of creating a joint fund with the South Korean government, Japanese and South Korean companies to compensate surviving South Korean victims of wartime forced labor.

A few hours before his return home aboard the presidential plane, the prime minister and Japanese business leaders spoke about the “importance of the two countries' business communities continuing personnel exchanges and dialogue” amid deteriorating bilateral ties.

Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of Keidanren, Japan's most-influential business lobby, told reporters after his meeting with Lee that the Japanese business sector and the PM shared the view that “efforts should be made” to develop the situation on positive fronts.

In a separate briefing, a senior foreign ministry official in Seoul told reporters that maintaining “diplomatic dialogue” is important in terms of narrowing stopgaps before reaching a “reasonable compromise.”

“We are beating our brains to reach any agreement and narrow the gap with Japan and keep holding diplomatic talks. But it is hard for us to foresee how the upcoming talks will unfold, as the discrepancies between the two remain wide,” the foreign ministry official said.

While Cheong Wa Dae didn't rule out the possibility of holding President Moon Jae-in's summit with Abe on the sidelines of next month's APEC gathering in Chile, the foreign ministry said no concrete plans have been made to bring Moon and Abe together for a summit.

Abe reiterated his Cabinet's position when he met with PM Lee that South Korea should not violate international law, referring to the 1965 normalization treaty which he said resolved all outstanding issues between the countries over the wartime period.

But South Korea still claims it's impossible to overturn last year's Supreme Court decision which ordered Japanese companies to compensate surviving South Korean victims of forced labor.

“South Korea's unwavering position is that it will continue to respect and abide by the treaty and the court ruling,” the official said. The point is how the two countries can come to terms with each other on the stark difference in views over the fundamentals of the ruling, according to the official.

“At the end of the dialogue with Abe, Lee said he hoped to improve bilateral relations between Seoul and Tokyo to pave the way for a possible Moon-Abe summit,” the ministry official said. “But the remark is not far from an official and formal suggestion for a summit.”