South Korea’s Foreign Minister Says ‘Big Disagreements’ With Japan Persist

(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Japan and South Korea remain at an impasse over trade and the enduring issue of compensation for wartime labor, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said after her first meeting with her new Japanese counterpart.The encounter with Japan’s new Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York was cordial, but “big disagreements on the issues at hand” remain, she said in a Bloomberg TV interview Friday.“The two ministries are talking at every opportunity that presents itself to use to try to try to better understand each other and to try to narrow the gap so we may be able to find a way forward,” Kang said.The comments come as relations between the neighbors are at depths not seen in years. Ties began to sour when South Korea’s Supreme Court last year ruled that Japanese companies were liable for compensation for Koreans conscripted as workers during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule over the peninsula.Japan contends all such claims were “settled completely and finally” in a 1965 treaty that set up basic relations, while the government of President Moon Jae-in has said the document doesn’t exempt Japanese companies from liability.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government issued an economic broadside at its neighbor in July by imposing export restrictions on three specialist materials essential to South Korean giants such as Samsung Electronics Co. for the production and semiconductors and displays. Tokyo later dropped South Korea from its list of trusted export destinations, prompting South Korea to undertake a similar move.South Korea announced last month it would withdraw from a military information-sharing agreement with Japan in November, prompting U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall Schriver to warn Seoul that its decision threatened U.S. security interests. Seoul has asked the U.S. to tone down its criticism, and a South Korean presidential security aide said the move presented the country with a chance to enhance its military alliance with the U.S.Kang has also been a proponent in the push by Moon’s government for talks with North Korea. Virtually no progress has been made toward an agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program despite three meetings between President Donald Trump and leader Kim Jong Un.She said she expects North Korea and the U.S. to to resume negotiations in weeks, adding that South Korea is absolutely at one with the U.S. toward the goal of complete denuclearization.To contact the reporters on this story: Shery Ahn in New York at sahn53@bloomberg.net;David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, ;Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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