Japan urges S.Korea to prevent sale of Mitsubishi assets, warns of response

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Tuesday urged the South Korean government to prevent the possible sale of assets from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as damages for victims of wartime labor during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsular.

South Korean plaintiffs have announced that they would soon begin court procedures to sell assets from Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as they seek damages for wartime labor forced on them by Japan during World War II. [File photo: IC]

Kono, in urging the South Korean side not to allow the asset sale, said that if harm comes to Japanese companies, Tokyo would respond.

"We strongly urge them to make sure it doesn't come to that," Kono told a press briefing on the matter.

Kono's remarks follow South Korean plaintiffs announcing that they would soon begin court procedures to sell assets from Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as they seek damages for wartime labor forced on them by Japan during World War II.

In November, South Korea's top court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy to compensate two groups of South Koreans plaintiffs for forced labor at its factories in Japan during the war.

The plaintiffs, sources with knowledge of the matter said, include women who were forced to work at factories in Japan, when the Korean Peninsula was still under Japanese colonial rule.

The female wartime laborers conscripted by Japan also included teenagers.

Japan claims the rulings are not in line with international law and run contrary to the foundation of friendly and cooperative relations between the two neighbors since the 1965 normalization of diplomatic ties and a bilateral accord signed alongside the treaty.

Japan believes the issue of the right to compensation for wartime labor claims was "finally and completely" resolved under the pact, and the series of court rulings on wartime labor since last October violate the agreement.

Bilateral tensions have again become strained between both sides over the ongoing wartime labor dispute.

Tokyo believes Seoul has not cooperated in trying to resolve this bilaterally, or by way of the establishment of an arbitration panel involving a third party.

Tokyo has claimed that Seoul has been reluctant to show willingness to advance talks on the matter through diplomatic channels, with Seoul seemingly, from Tokyo's perspective, disregarding a deadline to name a member to an arbitration panel along with Japan and a third country, and, hence, has sought outside arbitration on the issue.

In June, however, South Korea proposed that companies from both countries fund compensation for the plaintiffs, but Japan spurned the proposal for further dialogue on the matter in this direction.

Thursday, however, is the deadline for arbitration panel procedures that Japan has been requesting South Korea to set up to discuss the issue of wartime labor.

The row has potentially spilled over into economic issues, with Japan recently tightening export controls on some materials used by South Korean manufacturers for smartphone and TV displays, as well as semiconductors.

The Japanese government has said the tighter restrictions are due to reasons of national security, although South Korea believes the measures are retaliatory in nature and connected to the wartime labor dispute.