Seoul's FM urges Japan to make efforts to heal wounds caused by Tokyo's wartime forced labor

Tensions between Seoul and Tokyo continued to simmer on Thursday over Tokyo's wartime forced labor of Koreans.Speaking on the sidelines of an OECD Ministerial meeting in Paris, South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told her Japanese counterpart Taro Kono that Japan needs to make efforts to heal the victims' wounds and she highlighted the importance of Japan speaking prudently about the sensitive issue. Japan reacted angrily when South Korea's Supreme Court ordered in 2018 that two Japanese companies Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, now called Nippon Steel Corporation, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries compensate Korean victims of forced labor. Officials say the meeting went on half an hour longer than the 60 minutes originally scheduled.According to Seoul's foreign ministry, the two diplomats also exchanged views on the denuclearization of the peninsula and the dispute settlement on South Korea's ban on Japanese fishery products from regions around Fukushima.