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TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) – Japan's top diplomat said it was South Korea's responsibility to resolve the forced labor disputes that threatened dozens of Japanese companies threatening to reverse the ties between their two neighbors.
Foreign Minister Taro Kono said in an interview on Sunday, November 4 that the decision of the Supreme Court of South Korea, ordering a Japanese company to compensate those forced to serve him for the occupation of the country by Japan from 1910 to 1945, constituted a "serious challenge". to relationships. Japan believes that these claims were settled under a 1965 treaty, with a payment of US $ 300 million (US $ 412 million).
"It's obvious: they are responsible for taking care of all the demands of the Korean people – that's what they have to do," Kono told Bloomberg News in Tokyo. "It is what is in the agreement of 1965."
The court said Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp were to pay compensation of 100 million won (123,000 Singapore dollars) to each of the four plaintiffs who had filed a lawsuit for being forced to work for a predecessor of the company before 1945. Korea involving 69 companies, according to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This decision is one of many disputes between major US allies since the election of President Moon Jae-in by South Korea last year.
The two sides also began a pact aimed at resolving disputes over the trafficking of women in brothels of the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II, as well as spitting under the "Sun" flag. "rising" which prompted Japan to withdraw from an international review of its fleet last month.
Kono described the forced labor case as a "totally different problem" from others.
"If a country concludes an international law agreement with the Korean government and the Korean Supreme Court can cancel the agreement at any time, it would be difficult for a country to do anything with the South Korean government." Kono said, "So they have to deal with this issue first," otherwise the links can not move forward, he added.
Moreover, Kono rejected recent suggestions by US officials that Japan may be forced to go beyond the limits set for bilateral trade talks scheduled to open in January. He added that the United States had to provide something in exchange for any Japanese concession.
Japan gave in after almost two years of blockage and agreed to negotiate talks with the United States following the threat of tariffs on cars. In an effort to offset their trade deficit, the United States is demanding more access for its own cars as well as for agricultural products, after President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the scope of negotiations would be narrower than that of a free trade agreement. Both parties agreed that Japan would not be obliged to give more access to its sensitive agricultural market than that provided for in other trade agreements.
But Vice President Mike Pence later said that the United States would negotiate a free trade agreement with Japan, while US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue would have said that the United States should have at least as much access to Japanese markets as the EU or its members. of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Regional Agreement, which will come into effect on December 30th.
"The prime minister and the president create the framework and the negotiations will take place in the framework," Kono said. "Every trade negotiation must be mutually satisfactory, otherwise no agreement will be found, and if we give something to the United States, they will have to give us something."
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