Kono says forced labor issue with S. Korea resolved

August 23, 2017

TOKYO- Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Tuesday that his country and South Korea resolved decades ago the issue of compensation for damage caused during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

In an interview, Kono said he has "nothing to say" about the issue because the two countries ended the issue under a treaty concluded when they normalized their diplomatic relations in 1965.

Kono made the remark in response to a question on South Korean President Moon Jae-in's comment last week that individuals' rights to seek compensation for forced labor by Koreans during the colonial rule between 1910 and 1945 remain intact.

Over wartime comfort women, Kono said the two countries agreed in late 2015 to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the issue of the women forced into prostitution for soldiers of Japan's now-defunct military.

He also pointed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's 2015 war memorial statement, released to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, that noted the suffering Japan caused to its Asian neighbors. Jiji Press