Japan not to consider S. Korean wartime labor foundation

May 23, 2019

Tokyo--The Japanese government will not consider a South Korean proposal to set up a foundation to support wartime laborers, a senior official said Thursday.

"Even if it is proposed, all we will do is say, 'Is that so?'" the official said.

The proposal, raised by a member of South Korea's ruling party, comes amid a dispute between the Asian neighbors following a series of South Korean Supreme

Court rulings ordering Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean laborers during World War II.

The plan involves the South Korean government establishing a foundation to financially support wartime laborers who have not filed lawsuits against Japanese companies, in exchange for corporations already embroiled in suits paying ordered compensation.

The fund is designed to reduce future lawsuits from being filed, sources said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference Thursday that Seoul has not informed the Japanese government of the proposal.

"The South Korean government bears a duty to engage in arbitration," Suga added, calling for the establishment of an arbitration committee to settle the dispute.

Japan asserts that the issue of labor during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula has already been resolved by the 1965 bilateral agreement on claims and property. Jiji Press