Moon calls for dialogue, cooperation with Japan

August 15, 2019

Seoul--South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday called for talks and cooperation with Japan amid deteriorating bilateral ties due in part to a tit-for-tat trade conflict.

"If Japan chooses the path of dialogue and cooperation, we will gladly join hands," Moon said at a ceremony to mark the end of Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The bilateral trade row featuring tighter export controls followed South Korean Supreme Court rulings last year that ordered Japanese companies to pay compensations to South Korean plaintiffs over wartime labor.

Moon emphasized that the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games "will be a golden opportunity for East Asia to solidify the framework of friendship and cooperation and to progress along the path toward common prosperity."

At the ceremony held in Cheonan in the central part of South Korea, he went on to say that he looks forward to seeing the Tokyo Olympics become "a source of hope for friendship and cooperation," according to an unofficial English translation by the presidential office of Moon's address made in Korean. Jiji Press