Korea anticipates that Japan will respond to its resolution to compensate Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor once more progress is made in the implementation process, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Tuesday. Japan has not given any indication about making voluntary contributions to a Korean government-led public foundation set up to fund the compensation for the Korean forced labor victims, one year after Seoul announced the bold decision. The announcement of the resolution by President Yoon Suk Yeol, in March last year, led to the dramatic warming of bilateral relations between Seoul and Tokyo, and the resumption of shuttle diplomacy, or regular visits by the countries’ leaders. Although Korea has said the resolution does not seek compensation from liable Japanese companies, it has expressed hope that there will be voluntary participation from the Japanese side .Former Foreign Minister Park Jin has described this as Seoul “waiting for the half-full glass to be filled up” by Tokyo.

“When we make progress in our resolution, we believe that Japan will respond to it,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk said in a press briefing, when asked of the government stance a year after the announcement. Lim reiterated that the March resolution was a reasonable measure that took all the existing factors into account. “We will strive to carry out the follow-up measures so that they will serve as yet another turning point for bilateral relations between Korea and Japan,” Lim said. Bilateral relations had remained badly frayed since the Korean top court’s 2018 rulings that ordered Japan’s Mitsubishi Industries and Nippon Steel to pay damages to the victims. Of the 15 forced labor victims and their family members — the plaintiffs of the 2018 rulings, 11 have accepted the government resolution and received the compensation. Since then, the court has delivered a few more rulings in favor of the Korean plaintiffs and the government has been trying to 온라인카지노 reach out to them to discuss the compensation based on the government resolution