Foreign Minister Park Jin said Tuesday the ongoing resolution process with Japan for the compensation of Korean forced labor victims needs to be taken into account when considering the matter of awarding a surviving victim with an order of merit.
Park's comments came after the foreign ministry effectively thwarted the move by the country's human rights watchdog late last year to give Yang Geum-deok, an elderly Korean victim of forced labor under Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, a Moran Medal, the second-highest Order of Civil Merit.
The ministry had apparently told the National Human Rights Commission of the need for "prior consultations among related authorities" before putting the recommendation up for a Cabinet review under the due procedure.
Critics and opposition lawmakers accused the government of blocking the move to cozy up to Japan in line with President Yoon Suk Yeol's drive to improve relations with Tokyo.
"Awarding an order of merit is a matter to be approved by the president after going through a Cabinet review under the Awards and Decorations Act," Park said during the parliamentary audit in response to an opposition lawmaker's question regarding the matter.
"In addition, as the government's solution for the Supreme Court's rulings on forced labor is currently being implemented, the ministry believes that we should take that aspect into consideration as well," Park said.
Park's comment Tuesday can be seen as the first acknowledgement by a government official that the current relations with Japan are a factor that has affected the government's position.
Park reiterated that there was "an insufficient exchange of opinions" when the issue was first brought up last year and that more discussions are necessary from "a procedural perspective."
In 2018, South Korea's Supreme Court ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay compensation to the Korean victims forced into hard labor at Japanese factories and mines during Japan's 1910-45 colonial occupation of Korea.
Japan has refused to comply with the court rulings, insisting that all matters of compensation were settled under a 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral ties.
Yang was one of the four forced labor victims who rejected the government's plan to compensate the victims on its own without the contributions from Japanese companies.
Source: Yonhap News Agency