Yoon's hope of striking 'grand bargain' with Tokyo remains elusive

President Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee disembark the presidential jet as they arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Monday (local time). Yonhap

Minister Park Jin tells Japanese FM about what's being discussed in Korea as possible solution to forced labor issue

By Nam Hyun-woo

The foreign ministers of Korea and Japan met on Monday apparently to fine-tune details of an envisaged summit between President Yoon Suk-yeol and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later this week.

Details of the closed-door talks were not made public. But judging by the remarks made by Japan's top diplomat, the two sides did not seem to be on the same page on certain issues. This poses a grim outlook on the Korean president's hope of reaching "a grand bargain" to improve soured Seoul-Tokyo relations, which is already facing doubts over its feasibility.

According to Seoul's foreign ministry, South Korea's Minister of Foreign Affairs Park Jin and his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi had a 55-minute closed-door meeting at a hotel in New York, Monday (local time).

After the meeting, Park told reporters that the two sides "agreed to work together in a sincere manner to improve bilateral relations." The ministry also said Park told Hayashi that they should join efforts to achieve "desirable" resolutions related to history matters, referring to the issue of compensating the Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor. The issue stands as the key reason behind chilled relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

Although the details of the meeting were not disclosed, Park reportedly told Hayashi about the Korean government's efforts to explore ways to resolve the forced labor issue, such as organizing a private fund to compensate the victims.

Korea's Supreme Court has ordered the liquidation of assets here owned by two Japanese companies to compensate the forced labor victims, as the businesses have not complied with the compensation orders. To resolve this issue, the Yoon government has set up a public-private consultative body and held four meetings to explore ways to find a resolution.

So far, victims have been claiming that the Japanese companies should participate in organizing the fund to take at least some responsibility. They have also claimed that the Korean government should not contribute to the fund.

Including this, a series of updates were assumed to be made during the Park-Hayashi meeting, to have this matter be one of the subjects of the envisaged Yoon-Kishida summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Korea officially announced on Sept. 15 that Yoon and Kishida will hold a meeting, which will be the first Seoul-Tokyo summit since December 2019. But Japan has refused to confirm this, saying nothing has been fixed yet.

After the ministerial meeting, Japanese broadcaster TBS reported that Hayashi said he "welcomes" Korea's efforts to improve ties with Japan, but reiterated that "nothing has been fixed" over the possible summit between Yoon and Kishida.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks to the media before leaving for New York to deliver an address at the U.N. General Assembly, at the prime minister's office in Tokyo Tuesday. AFP-Yonhap

Multiple sources at the presidential office said the summit "will take place" on the sidelines of the U.N. event, but the discord raises doubts over Yoon's idea of pursuing "a grand bargain" to resolve the current bilateral friction.

During an interview with The New York Times published on Sunday, Yoon said he hopes to strike "a grand bargain" with Tokyo over thorny historical issues.

Yoon has been using the term to describe his diplomatic philosophy of tabling various pending agendas between the two countries, including the forced labor issue, Japan's wartime sex slavery, bilateral cooperation on security issues and economic matters, all on the table for negotiation, and seek a comprehensive resolution.

This, however, is facing doubts because the two sides are still struggling to coordinate whether they should announce the plan to hold the summit, which is seen as the first step toward the grand bargain.

The domestic popularity of the two leaders also undermines the momentum of the bargain.

Since the two countries' relations have been intertwined with negative public sentiment towards each other, seeking an amicable outcome requires solid domestic support for the leaders.

However, Yoon's job approval rating stood at 33.4 percent in a Realmeter poll released on Monday, while that of the Kishida Cabinet remained at 29 percent in a Mainichi Shimbun poll also revealed on Monday.

Since the two leaders have yet to spend a year in their offices, pundits also said they did not have enough time to convince their people of the necessity of mending frayed bilateral ties even though that process may go against public sentiment.

Against this backdrop, the format of the possible Yoon-Kishida summit is also gaining attention. Seoul's presidential office has said the leaders will sit down for about 30 minutes for an official summit, while Japanese news outlets are reporting that even though the leaders meet, it will be a casual pull-aside meeting.