Easing Tensions Amid Strained Ties

Japanese and South Korean lawmakers on Friday agreed in principle that more dialogue and work in general was necessary for the two countries involved in a bitter trade spat stemming from a dispute over wartime compensation to break the stalemate and ease tensions. Fukushiro Nukaga, leader of a nonpartisan group of lawmakers here committed to promoting friendly ties between Japan and South Korea, told a meeting with South Korean lawmakers at the Diet building in Tokyo that positive decisions must be made by both camps in order to resolve the conflict.

“Our role is to build a framework of cooperation, not conflict. Now we must make the correct choices that will enable us to break the stalemate and find a path toward resolution,” said Nukaga.

Kang Chang-il, his opposite number in South Korea, said that while ties remained strained with the wartime labor dispute impacting the two countries’ trade relations, the continuation of dialogue remains paramount.

Bilateral ties are “in a difficult situation, as what was a dispute over history has spread to economic and security areas. In order to resolve the dispute over history, we must continue dialogue,” said Mr Kang.

Japan and South Korea have seen bilateral ties sink to their lowest level in recent years following South Korea’s top court last year ordering Japanese firms to pay compensation to forced laborers during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Japan, for its part, has claimed the rulings are not in line with international law and run contrary to the foundation of friendly and cooperative relations between the two neighbors since the 1965 normalisation of diplomatic ties.

Japan maintains the matter of compensation for wartime labor was “finally and completely” resolved under the pact.Xinhua