Japan Hails S. Korea Plan to Resolve Wartime Labor Dispute

Tokyo, March 6 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida welcomed a plan announced by the South Korean government Monday to resolve a dispute between the two countries over wartime labor as an important step for improving their relations.

"I appreciate it as a step for bringing Japan-South Korea relations back on track," Kishida told a parliamentary committee meeting.

"I want to continue to communicate closely with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and work on developing Japan-South Korea relations," he said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that the Kishida cabinet upholds its predecessors' positions on the recognition of history, including the 1998 joint statement released by then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

In the 1998 statement, Japan expressed its "deep remorse and heartfelt apology" for tremendous damage and suffering it caused to the people of South Korea through its past colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]