Japan, South Korea to study fund to ease wartime forced labour issue: Report

TOKYO: The South Korean and Japanese governments are studying plans for a joint economic programme involving companies from both countries which aims to ease strains over the issue of forced Korean labour in World War II, Kyodo news reported on Monday (Oct 28).

However, the Japanese government will not provide any money to the programme, in line with its position that claims over forced labour were settled in a 1965 treaty, Kyodo said, citing unnamed sources.

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South Korea and Japan have a bitter history that includes the 1910-45 Japanese colonisation of the Korean peninsula, the forced mobilisation of labour at Japanese companies and the use of "comfort women" – Japan's euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean – forced to work in military brothels.

South Korea in June proposed a joint fund with Japan to compensate South Koreans forced to work by Japanese companies during the war, but Japan rejectRead More – Source