South Korean president berates Japan for carrying out plan to downgrade South Korea's trade status and reiterates Seoul's stance that Tokyo was weaponizing trade to retaliate over disputes from wartime history.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. Moon has berated Japan for carrying out its plan to downgrade South Korea's trade status and reiterated Seoul's stance that Tokyo was weaponizing trade to retaliate over political rows stemming from the countries' wartime history.
He said Japan should look “squarely at the past” and that its current actions were aggravating the pain and anger of South Koreans who suffered under Japan’s brutal colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Tokyo’s recent moves to tighten controls on exports to South Korea, where major manufacturers like Samsung heavily rely on materials and parts imported from Japan, have touched off a full-blown diplomatic dispute.
But Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga did say on Thursday that the issue surrounding wartime forced laborers was the “biggest problem in bilateral relations.” Japan insists that all compensation matters were settled when the two countries normalized relations under a 1965 treaty and that the South Korean court rulings go against international law.
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