Japan, South Korea reach ‘groundbreaking’ deal to mend relations

BLOOMBERG

Japan and South Korea signaled a breakthrough to end a feud that had disrupted ties on everything from trade to security, drawing praise from President Joe Biden as he seeks to convince the two US allies to help counter growing Chinese influence in Asia.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday he hoped to “enter a new phase” with Japan by proposing a plan to resolve a dispute over people forced to work for Japanese companies during the country’s colonisation of the Korean Peninsula. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the effort to “return ties to a healthy state” and both sides announced talks on rolling back trade curbs imposed almost four years ago.
“The government hopes to build a future-oriented relationship between Korea and Japan, based on reconciliation and cooperation,” South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin told a news conference on Monday in Seoul. He also called Japan his country’s “closest neighbour” sharing “universal values such as freedom and democracy, market economy, rule of law, and human rights.”
Under Yoon’s plan, South Korean companies, rather than Japanese ones, would finance a foundation to pay forced-labour victims. Those tapped to pay would include firms that benefited from funds transferred under a 1965 treaty intended to resolve forced labor issues and wartime disputes between Japan and South Korea, such as Posco Holdings Inc.