Japan ends restrictions on South Korean exports as relations unfreeze
Japan and South Korea have agreed to mend a nearly four-year-old trade dispute, the two governments announced on Thursday.
The announcement was made during South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s trip to Japan. He is the first South Korean leader to visit the country in 12 years.
What does the agreement mean?
Under the agreement, Japan will end restrictions on semiconductor exports to South Korea, and South Korea will withdraw a complaint it filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Japan.
“Today’s meeting with Prime Minister Kishida is of special significance to inform the people of our two countries that South Korea-Japan relations, which have gone through difficult times due to several outstanding issues, are at a new starting point. “, Yoon said in Tokyo on Thursday.
“As seen in North Korea’s launch of a long-range ballistic missile prior to my departure for Tokyo this morning, North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats are a grave threat not only to East Asia, but to international peace and stability”.
tensions of decades
The latest trade dispute between South Korea and Japan arose after South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that two Japanese companies, Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, must pay compensation to victims of forced labor during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945. .
Japan argued that the issue of forced labor had already been settled in a 1965 treaty.
Recently, Seoul announced a new proposal under which former forced laborers or their relatives would be compensated from a South Korean public fund backed by private donations.
South Korean companies that benefited from the 1965 treaty would be targeted by this plan.
Source: DW
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