Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday said he sympathises with those who suffered under Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, but stopped short of offering an official apology as desired by many South Koreans.
Comments came when Kishida met South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul, their second meeting in less than two months.
It also marks the first exchange of visits between the leaders of the Asian neighbours in 12 years.
The visit of the Japanese PM was intensely watched by many Koreans who hold deep resentment against Japan’s 1910-45 colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula
After the meeting, Kishida said that his “heart ached” for the past suffering of Koreans, adding that he stood by Japan’s previous remorseful sentiments. However, he did not comment further on the issue.
“And personally, I have strong pain in my heart as I think of the extreme difficulty and sorrow that many people had to suffer under the severe environment in those days,” Kishida told a joint news conference with Yoon, referring to the Japanese colonial period.
Japan’s Kishida visits South Korea’s National Cemetery
He said he believes “it is my responsibility as prime minister of Japan to cooperate with” Yoon to forge stronger relations.
The back-to-back meetings come in the backdrop of bitter ties that emanated from the 2018 court rulings in South Korea ordering two Japanese companies to financially compensate some of their ageing former Korean employees for colonial-era forced labour.
Japan, however, refused to adhere to the rulings, arguing that all compensation issues were already settled when the two countries normalised ties in 1965, reports AP news agency.
The tensions led to the countries downgrading each other’s trade status and Seoul’s previous liberal government threatening to spike a military intelligence-sharing pact.
Their strained ties complicated US efforts to build a stronger regional alliance to better cope with rising Chinese influence and North Korean nuclear threats. President Biden is expected to meet with both Kishida and Yoon later this month.
“We should stay away from thinking that we must not make a step forward because our history issues aren’t settled completely,” Yoon said Sunday. He said that 10 out of the 15 former forced labourers or their families involved in the 2018 rulings had accepted compensation under Seoul’s third-party reimbursement plan.
(With inputs from agencies)
