Seoul Seen Taking Time to Show Response over Labor Rulings

December 26, 2018

Seoul--South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has reportedly indicated that the country's government will take more time before showing its position over a series of top court rulings ordering Japanese firms to pay compensation over wartime labor.

Related government agencies have been discussing the issue through a vice minister-level task force led by Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, Kang said in an interview with the Hankyoreh, carried in the South Korean daily's online edition on Wednesday.

With judicial proceedings under way, the time is not yet ripe for the government to come forward and clarify its stance, she said, suggesting that the handling of the issue is likely to be carried over into next year.

In recent rulings, South Korea's supreme court ordered some Japanese companies to pay compensation to South Koreans who were brought to Japan to work in the country during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule at the time.

Japan sticks to is position that the issue of wartime compensation was settled under a bilateral accord reached when the two countries normalized their diplomatic relations in 1965.

In a democratic country, where the separation of the legislative, administrative and judicial branches is valued, the administrative division must respect a decision by the judicial branch, Kang said in the interview, referring to the wartime labor rulings by the Supreme Court of Korea.

At the same time, she said that appropriately controlling impacts of the judicial proceedings on bilateral relations is a task of the Foreign Ministry.

On South Korea's recent decision to dissolve a foundation aimed at supporting former Korean "comfort women," Kang indicated that major progress has yet to be made over the handling of the one billion yen the Japanese government contributed to the foundation.

Seoul needs to hold talks with Tokyo over the matter after consultations with victims and related groups, she added. The foundation was set up based on a 2015 landmark bilateral accord to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the issue of comfort women, who were allegedly forced into prostitution for Japanese troops before and during World War II.

Kang unveiled a plan for South Korea to host a large-scale international conference next year for broad discussions on wartime sexual violence, including the comfort women issue. The event will bring together officials of the United Nations and related nongovernmental organizations, she said. Jiji Press