Japan & S. Korea Hold Working-Level Talks On Wartime Forced Labour

Diplomats from Japan and South Korea met today for working-level talks on ways to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime labour, Yonhap News Agency reports.

• Bilateral relations hit new lows in 2018 when South Korea's Supreme Court ordered two Japanese companies to compensate Korean forced labourers from World War II. The issue escalated as Japan deemed compensation claims settled under its 1965 accord with South Korea.
• Shared geopolitical threats from the increasingly assertive China and North Korea prompted a reset in the relations between Japan and South Korea, as the two nations pursued joint military drills and expressed the intention to reopen talks on their historical disputes.
• South Korea last week floated the idea of creating a fund based locally that would pay the victims of wartime forced labourers, but the suggestion that Japanese companies could avert financing the initiative has triggered domestic backlash, which was conveyed to the Japanese side today.