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| The photo shows Hashima Island, left, known as Battleship Island in Korea, where it is believed between 500 and 800 Koreans were forced to work between 1943 and 1945, with 122 of them dying. Yonhap |
By Kang Seung-woo
The Yoon Suk-yeol administration has begun full-fledged discussions with Japan to address the thorny issue of wartime forced labor by launching a public-private consultative body. But it remains to be seen if it will find a breakthrough in resolving the matter, which has been a major stumbling block in Korea-Japan relations.
On Monday, the government launched the 12-member body, comprised of government officials, experts and journalists as well as legal representatives of the victims and their families, and held an inaugural session, hoping to come up with solutions to normalize bilateral ties by the end of next month.
In October and November of 2018, Korea's Supreme Court issued separate rulings ordering Japanese companies found guilty of exploiting forced labor during WW II to compensate surviving Korean victims of wartime forced labor. But the Japanese side has refused to pay them. As a result, the Korean victims filed lawsuits to liquidate their assets here and got the nod from local courts. But the Japanese firms have appealed that ruling. The companies are Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal, renamed Nippon Steel, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The discussion comes as the Supreme Court's final call is expected to come next month, although the Japanese government continues to insist that the Korean government proposes answers to the forced labor issue. Tokyo is also calling on Seoul to offer solutions to the issue of Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during WWII. Japan believes the two issues have already been resolved by bilateral agreements signed in 1965.
"The biggest sticking point for the consultative body in coming up with solutions is how to narrow the difference between Korea and Japan," said Choi Eun-mi, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
"In addition, there are various ideas on how to resolve the issue, so the first barrier for the consultative body to tackle would be to coordinate diverse opinions."
Legal representatives who participated in Monday's meeting say the victims want the government to arrange direct negotiations between them and the Japanese companies over the issue.
"It is reasonable for the victims and the Japanese firms to meet each other and discuss the issue," the legal representative said ahead of the meeting.
"If a meeting is arranged, we plan to ask the judicial proceedings to be halted."
However, it would be a daunting task for the government to arrange such a meeting, because the Japanese side is poised not to respond, because of its stance that the 1965 normalization treaty between the two countries settled individual compensation issues and nothing further is owed.
It also remains to be seen if any proposals resulting from the consultative body's meetings will be legally binding.
A legal representative, who participated in the meeting, said the government failed to clarify whether the consultative body's goal is to come up with the government's proposal or to simply gather opinions and remained cautious about deciding to attend the next meeting, expected to take place later this month.
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