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| Foreign Minister Park Jin, left, bumps elbows with his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi before their meeting at the Japanese ministry's Ikura Guest House in Tokyo, Monday. Yonhap |
'Issues including GSOMIA were discussed,' says Park
By Nam Hyun-woo
Foreign Minister Park Jin had a meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, Monday, to mend ties with Tokyo.
During their closed-door meeting, Park said Seoul will make efforts to draw out "a reasonable resolution" on the forced labor issue between the countries, which is the main reason that triggered diplomatic friction between Seoul and Tokyo, according to Korea's foreign ministry.
"The two ministers agreed that a prompt resolution on the issue is necessary," the ministry said in a press release.
Park's comments came amid President Yoon Suk-yeol's efforts to improve bilateral relations between Seoul and Tokyo. Bilateral ties have plunged to their lowest ebb after Japan in 2019 launched export controls on key industrial materials heading to Korea, in retaliation against a 2018 ruling by the Korean Supreme Court ordering Japanese companies found guilty of exploiting forced labor during World War II to compensate surviving Korean victims.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its final verdicts on whether to allow the liquidation of assets held by two Japanese companies as early as next month, while Japan sees the liquidation as a red line that must not be crossed.
Following Yoon's drive to improve ties with Japan, a government-private consultative body involving the victims was launched in Korea earlier this month to come up with specific proposals for a resolution.
However, the attempt heralds a bumpy road ahead as some of the victims opposed a potential scenario of the Korean government paying the compensation instead of the Japanese companies and collecting the money through a fund.
"The body is exploring various ideas, and I am going to explain this situation to Japan," Park said after arriving at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo. "We will collect our wisdom to draw out the most reasonable resolution."
Along with his promise on the forced labor issue, Park proposed that the two countries should improve their relations based on the Korea-Japan Joint Declaration in 1998, in which the two countries agreed on future-oriented relations based on Japan's recognition of the damage and suffering caused during its past colonial rule over Korea.
It is the first time in four years and seven months that the two countries' foreign ministers sat down for talks.
Since Yoon's May 10 inauguration, Seoul became more active in extending an olive branch to Tokyo, with the Korean president describing Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as a "partner" with whom he can "work together to resolve bilateral issues," after encountering the latter on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Spain last month.
However, the leaders did not hold a summit or an official bilateral meeting, due to the possible impact on Japan's July 10 upper house elections, and the recent assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made it more difficult for Kishida to pay attention to foreign affairs, such as Seoul-Tokyo relations.
Against this backdrop, the ministerial meeting is interpreted as the two countries' efforts to address bilateral relations in a bottom-up approach ― working on what can be addressed at the working level, rather than making major efforts to quickly draw up bigger agreements by the two leaders.
In line with this approach, Park told reporters before meeting Hayashi that the meeting's agenda would include the normalization of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) intelligence-sharing pact, which has been in an equivocal state since the Seoul-Tokyo relations were frayed.
GSOMIA is designed to be renewed automatically every year unless one side informs the other 90 days in advance of its plans to end the deal. In August 2019, the previous Moon Jae-in administration told Japan that it would end the deal, in response to Tokyo's tightened export controls on Seoul.
Though Seoul conditionally suspended the decision to terminate the agreement following a resolution passed in the U.S. Senate calling on Korea to renew it, the pact's status has been in limbo, as Seoul-Tokyo relations continued to deteriorate.
Park has been championing the idea that the normalization of GSOMIA will help mend ties between Korea and Japan. After meeting U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken last month, Park said, "We want GSOMIA to be normalized as soon as possible together with the improvement of the Korea-Japan relationship."
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| Foreign Minister Park Jin, second from left, prepares for a meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, second from right, at the Japanese foreign ministry's Ikura Guest House in Tokyo, Monday. Yonhap |
