Seoul's First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong has said, “There are a lot of speculative articles (over the solution to the wartime forced labor issue) but the governments have not made a decision, nor set a deadline (for resolution),” after a trilateral meeting with his American and Japanese counterparts in Tokyo on Wednesday.
South Korea and Japan largely seem to have agreed on having a third party entity provide the compensation, which South Korea's top court recommended when it ordered two Japanese firms to pay victims in 2018. But the Japanese firms have refused to accept the liability, stating their government's position is that all claims stemming from the colonial period were "settled completely and finally" under a 1965 bilateral agreement.
The Korean victims, plaintiffs in the suit, have demanded that the Japanese companies, Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, follow the court's order and deliver sincere apologies.
“The South Korean government initially reviewed the plan to provide the compensation on behalf (of the Japanese companies). But after considering the plan is highly likely to face strong public opposition, it is now thinking of having the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan collect donations to pay the damages,” the media quoted a Korean ministry official.
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