한일 국장급 협의 개최...강제징용 등 주요 현안 논의

Officials from Seoul and Tokyo sat down for talks for the first time on the forced labor issue,... since the South Korean Supreme ruled that a Japanese steelmaker must compensate Koreans victims for their unpaid labor during World War Two.
Today the victims also said they will go ahead with seizing the company's assets in Korea.
Park Hee-jun gets us up to speed with the developments. Officials from South Korea and Japan held their first face-to-face talks on Monday about the recent rulings on wartime forced labor.
South Korea's Director-General for Northeast Asian Affairs, Kim Yong-kil , and his Japanese counterpart, Kenji Kanasugi, met in Seoul for the first time since the Supreme Court in Seoul ruled in October... that Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation has to compensate the Koreans it forced to work without pay during Japanese colonial rule.
Kim told reporters that they exchanged their views on the matter of compensation and agreed to continue close coordination to minimize its effect on South Korea-Japan relations.
They also agreed to work together to move past their history and strive for future-oriented relations.
Japan has been protesting against the ruling,... arguing that the 1965 agreement between the two countries settled all reparation-related issues.
But there was a slight shift in tone,... when Foreign Minister Taro Kono said that Japan understands the difficulties that South Korea faces in responding to the court’s decisions,... and that it won't rush Korea into making a decision right away.
Kanasugi, who is also Tokyo's top nuclear envoy,.. also sat down with his other South Korean counterpart, Lee Do-hoon, to talk about North Korea’s denuclearization.
They discussed ways to restart dialogue between Pyeongyang and Washington,... and agreed to continue to cooperate closely on North Korea-related issues.
The same day, the four South Korean plaintiffs in the labor court case against the Japanese steel company,... announced that they will begin procedures to have the Japanese steel company's assets in the country seized.
The lawyers representing the victims had warned the company that they would do so,... unless it responded to the court's verdict by 5 PM on December 24th.
In October, Seoul's Supreme Court ordered the firm to pay 87-thousand U.S. dollars to each of the four plaintiffs in the ruling.
But with no response from the firm,... the victims plan to move forward with the plan.
However, they will take into consideration any developments steming from the ongoing diplomacy on the matter.
Park Hee-jun, Arirang News.