Yoon Deok-min, Ambassador to Japan: "Third-Party Payment a 'Desperate Measure,' Japanese Right-Wing Also Cooperating with Korea... Detecting Change"

Distortion of History Textbooks, Responding Based on Precedents... We Will Promote the Perception That Our Historical Claims Are Correct and Rational

Yoon Deok-min, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Japan, stated on the 27th that the third-party compensation solution proposed by our government for forced labor is a "desperate measure," and that even the right-wing in Japan is shifting toward a mood of cooperation with Korea.

After attending the meeting of heads of overseas diplomatic missions, Ambassador Yoon held a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Seoul and said, "The 1965 Claims Agreement and the 2018 Supreme Court ruling contradict each other, and the government must respect both while finding a solution. In a way, the third-party subrogation proposal, which I consider a desperate measure, has emerged," he said.

Ambassador Yoon added that there are two groups within the Japanese right-wing who emphasize either security or historical identity, and "Recently, the right-wing faction that prioritizes security is strongly advocating cooperation with Korea," noting that "a change is being sensed in the Japanese political landscape."

Regarding reports that the Japanese government has approved the review of textbooks with content that is more regressive than before on forced labor and Dokdo, and is expected to announce the details soon, he said, "We will respond based on precedent." He stated, "In historical issues, it is a situation where we must fight over which side is correct between the right-wing and the Japanese public," and added, "It is the embassy’s role to make people recognize that the history we assert is correct and reasonable."

Reflecting on the Korea-Japan relationship he witnessed since his appointment in July last year, Ambassador Yoon said, "Trust had collapsed, and yet we did not strongly push Japan, resulting in an ambiguous relationship," and recalled that his task was to restore it to its best days. Regarding the forced labor solution recently announced by the government, he evaluated it as "a desperate measure where the government must respect the contradictory 1965 Claims Agreement and the 2018 Supreme Court ruling while finding a solution."

He also mentioned that although Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did not explicitly use the phrase "deep remorse and heartfelt apology" as stated in the Murayama Statement and the Kim Dae-jung?Obuchi Joint Declaration, he said he would uphold the statement as a whole. Ambassador Yoon said, "After the Korea-Japan summit, I told embassy staff that we must be more confident and that since the statement is being upheld, we must respond to historical issues based on that."

He added, "Not all problems were solved by the Korea-Japan summit," and "There has been a diplomatic war over the past decade, but now a turning point has been reached toward a normal Korea-Japan relationship. There is still a great deal of work to be done going forward."