Japan is considering taking a dispute with South Korea over its compensation for forced laborers during World War II to the International Court of Justice as the deadline for seeking third-nation arbitration passed yesterday, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.
The question of compensation for South Koreans for labor during Japan’s 1910to 1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula has soured the US allies’ relations, which took a turn for the worse this month when Japan restricted exports of high-tech material to South Korea.
The South Korean Supreme Court last year ordered two Japanese companies to compensate the wartime workers in a ruling that Tokyo said contravened international law. Japan believes the issue of compensation was settled under a 1965 treaty.
With no mutually palatable agreement, Tokyo has pushed for third-party arbitration, which Seoul has rejected.
Midnight yesterday was the deadline for making those arrangements, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said.
Nishimura told a regular briefing that Tokyo had not received any word on Seoul’s decision. He added that the government would continue to “strongly urge” its neighbor to accept the arbitration procedure.
NHK said that once the deadline passed, Japan would continue to push Seoul for proposals to end the dispute, while preparing for countermeasures — including considering going to the International Court of Justice.
However, the case cannot go to trial without agreement from South Korea, Kyodo news agency reported.
Officials at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs were not immediately available to comment.
Japan initially cited the dispute over compensation for the wartime laborers as being behind what it sees as broken trust with South Korea when it announced tighter export controls this month.
Tokyo has stressed that the controls were not retaliation over the forced-labor dispute.
In a separate report, Kyodo cited Japanese government sources as saying Tokyo would reject Seoul’s request to hold another working-level meeting to discuss the export controls.
The most recent, held last week in Tokyo, stoked tensions further as the two sides publicly contested the accounts of their frosty meeting.
South Korea has appealed to the US to defuse the tension with Japan, warning of threats to global supplies of memory chips and smartphones.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and leaders of five major political parties met yesterday and vowed to work together to resolve the disputes with Japan.
In a joint statement, they said that Japan’s export curbs were an “unjust economic retaliation” and agreed to work together to mitigate the impact the dispute might have on the nation’s economy.
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