President of S. Korea, Moon Jae-in, and the PM of Japan, Yoshihide Suga. (Image via Korea JoongAng Daily)

Without assurance of wartime dispute, Suga won't visit S. Korea

Regarding the trilateral meeting between Japan, China, and South Korea (S. Korea) as its host, the Prime Minister (PM) of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, stated that he won't guarantee attending if the host will not liquidate the assets seized from a Japanese company following the court ruling on compensation for wartime labor. The information came from an anonymous senior Foreign Ministry official on Wednesday. While being the host for the 2020 trilateral summit, it is "impossible" for Suga to attend if S. Korea will not fulfill his demand.

Previously in October 2018, Japan - S. Korea relations had gone to its lowest point in decades after the Supreme Court of S. Korea ruled Nippon Steel to pay four plaintiffs to compensate for the forced labor during Japan's colonial invasion of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 - 1945. On the other hand, Japan stated that the compensation had already been made as agreed in the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations which stated that the compensation issue was settled "completely and finally" by an $800 million "financial cooperation".

On Thursday last week, Suga also held a phone call with the President of S. Korea, Moon Jae-in, for the first time since being appointed as the new PM of Japan mid-September. Suga asserted that the bilateral relations between Tokyo and Seoul cannot remain as such. While Nippon Steel's asset can be liquidated any time, Japan's Foreign Minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, had repeatedly warned his S. Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, that failing to liquidate the assets would do "irreparable" damage to the bilateral ties between Japan and S. Korea.

Source: https://bit.ly/3ik1dyc