South Korea urged to pick third country for wartime labor arbitration

June 19, 2019

Tokyo--Japan asked South Korea on Wednesday to choose a third country to select a member for an arbitration panel tasked with resolving the issue of court orders for compensation by Japanese companies to South Koreans over wartime labor.

Kenji Kanasugi, director-general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, made the request to South Korean minister to Japan, who was summoned to the ministry.

The request came after Seoul effectively ignored an earlier Tokyo request, made on May 20, to select an arbitration panel member under a 1965 bilateral agreement to settle property and compensation disputes arising from Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula up until the end of World War II. South Korea did not respond to the request by the Tuesday deadline.

The 1965 accord stipulates that if one of the two countries does not select an arbitration panel member, two other countries, each chosen by Japan and South Korea, as well a third country chosen by the selected two countries will each select a member for the three-member arbitration panel.

Kanasugi expressed his regret that South Korea had not responded to Japan's request.

At a news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called on South Korea to choose a third country within 30 days, as stipulated by the bilateral agreement.

"Japan will continue to strongly call on South Korea to comply with the request for arbitration in line with its obligations under the agreement," Suga said.

On the wartime labor issue, the South Korean Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies last year to pay compensation to South Koreans who were requisitioned to work for the firms during the war. Japan takes the position that the issue was settled under the 1965 bilateral agreement.

With no arbitration procedures in place and Seoul taking no other measures to resolve the wartime labor issue, it is possible that South Korea will again not respond.

A senior Japanese government official said that there is "no chance" of a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korea President Moon Jae-in on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in the western Japan city of Osaka late this month. Jiji Press