|
TOKYO, Nov. 15-- Senior Japanese and South Korean foreign ministry officials in talks on Friday failed to make substantial progress over a wartime labor feud that has spilled over into a trade row and seen bilateral ties sink to the lowest in recent years between both countries. Shigeki Takizaki, the director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and Kim Jung-han, South Korean Foreign Ministry's director-general for Asian and Pacific Affairs, met in Tokyo for about two and a half hours. The talks marked their first in about a month. Despite discussing the issue of Japan's use of forced laborers during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula dominating the talks, little progress was made, sources close to the matter said. Japan on Friday stuck to its line that the rulings made by South Korea's top courts for Japanese firms to pay compensation to the plaintiffs connected to the forced wartime labor issue, 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. Japan has maintained that the matter of compensation for wartime labor was "finally and completely" resolved under the pact and doubled-down on its belief that the rulings contravene international law. Takizaki on Friday reiterated Japan's stance that South Korea must "immediately correct" the situation, while the South Korean side, for its part, could not present any solutions for a breakthrough to the impasse, ministry officials said. | 
