South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday he hopes to cooperate with Japan and look "toward the future" after his government proposed a solution aimed at settling a long-running wartime labor compensation dispute with its neighbor.
South Korea "will faithfully implement" the solution, Yoon said in a written interview with Kyodo News and other major news agencies ahead of his two-day visit to Japan from Thursday, the first in around four years by the president of South Korea, for talks with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Yoon, who took office in May last year, said his forthcoming trip to Japan is "itself an important step forward" for bilateral relations, and expressed hope that the two countries can "now move forward together toward the future rather than be in a confrontation over the past."
Yoon said he looks forward to having "frequent dialogue" with Kishida "as often as is necessary, that is unrestricted by formalities and time." Reciprocal visits between Japanese and South Korean leaders had been halted since December 2011 amid strained ties over history and territorial issues.
Bilateral relations plunged to their lowest point in decades after South Korea's top court in 2018 ordered two Japanese companies to compensate plaintiffs for forced labor during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
The ruling provoked fierce opposition from Japan, which has maintained that all claims related to the colonial period were settled "completely and finally" by a 1965 bilateral agreement.
But since Yoon's government announced steps on March 6 toward resolving the issue, both countries have made an effort to patch up ties, with Kishida's government saying it will uphold statements by previous governments that expressed remorse over colonization.
Kishida is now considering visiting South Korea after a summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized countries in May, according to diplomatic sources.
The South Korean solution suggests a government-backed foundation pays a sum of money equivalent to the amount ordered in a damages ruling by the country's top court to plaintiffs in lawsuits against the Japanese firms.
The plan has been welcomed by the United States, an ally of South Korea and Japan, but has not been widely embraced by the South Korean public, with some plaintiffs in related lawsuits and South Korean opposition party members expressing discontent.
Yoon said during the interview that he "believes the Korean people will understand how hard the government has worked to heal the wounds of the forced labor victims and to build future-oriented Korea-Japan relations."
Referring to the two countries' 1998 declaration, in which then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi expressed "his deep remorse and heartfelt apology" for the "tremendous damage and suffering" inflicted upon the people of Korea through Japan's colonial rule, Yoon expressed hope that Japan will also make efforts to move bilateral ties forward "with the same sense of responsibility and perception of history."
Amid increasing nuclear and missile threats by North Korea, increasing the need for South Korea and Japan to enhance security cooperation, Yoon said, "We cannot afford to waste time" by leaving Korea-Japan relations strained.
In this respect, Yoon expressed hope that a bilateral agreement with Japan on sharing military intelligence "will be invigorated as part of the process of restoring trust between our two countries."
The pact, known formally as the General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA, allows the two U.S. allies to directly share intelligence related to North Korea's ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. It had previously faced the risk of being scrapped.
Yoon also said the sharing of real-time missile warning data, a move agreed upon by the leaders of South Korea, Japan and the United States in November last year, "will enable a more powerful and effective response to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats."
Yoon expressed hope about enhancing cooperation on semiconductor development and other high-tech projects with Japan, noting that doing so would "contribute greatly to boosting global supply chains."
Referring to the envisioned bilateral talks about Japan's lifting of controls on semiconductor material exports to South Korea, imposed in 2019, Yoon said, "I hope that relations will be normalized as soon as possible to create a predictable business environment for companies."
