South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin on Tuesday met with the families of the victims of wartime forced labor to update them on the state of government consultations with Japan on the long-standing issue of compensation.
Park met with the families to “sufficiently explain the government’s diplomatic efforts to come up with a reasonable solution” between South Korea and Japan regarding the Supreme Court ruling on forced labor,” Lim Soo-suk, spokesperson for the ministry, said during a regular press briefing.
The meeting was arranged for Park to also listen to their opinions on the government’s proposal of using a public foundation based in South Korea to pay the compensation for Korean victims who won lawsuits against two Japanese firms — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp — in 2018.
Victims and supporting civic groups have rejected the plan, calling for Japan’s apology and direct involvement by the accused companies in the compensation process.
“I came here in person to meet and listen to the voices of the families of the victims of wartime forced labor, and to come up with a desirable solution,” Park told reporters as he arrived at the meeting held in southern Seoul.
Attending the meeting were families of the victims who worked for Nippon Steel and at facilities in Hiroshima for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
During the 70-minute meeting, there were mixed reactions from the families, according to Lim Jae-sung, their legal representative.
Some supported the plan, while others criticized it and urged the government to come up with ways to receive an apology and compensation from Japan, Lim told reporters after the meeting.
The families claimed the government did not inform them of any progress in talks with Tokyo on the issue and that foreign ministry officials did not provide any details on how the proposed foundation would be formed.
Seoul and Tokyo have held several rounds of working-level consultations on ways to resolve the issue. Japan has claimed all reparation issues related to the 1910-45 colonial rule were settled under a 1965 treaty.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Park told reporters that follow-up talks with Tokyo are under way following his meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, in Munich earlier this month.
“We fully explained our stance to the Japanese side during the talks in Munich, and consultations are currently ongoing based on that,” he said.
On Feb. 18, Park called on Japan to make a “political decision” over the issue in his talks with Hayashi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Last weekend, Takehiro Funakoshi, director-general for Asian and Oceanian Affairs at Tokyo’s foreign ministry, made a closed-door visit to Seoul, according to an informed source.
Funakoshi is likely to have held talks with South Korean officials during the visit, but it remains unclear whether there was any meaningful reaction from Tokyo to Seoul’s call for a political decision.
Source: Yonhap News Agency