South Korea accuses Japan of "lukewarm" stand on NK sanctions

[SEOUL] Relations between US allies South Korea and Japan deteriorated on Tuesday with South Korea questioning Japan's commitment to UN sanctions against North Korea, while a South Korean legal case looked set to aggravate old wartime animosity.

Relations between the neighbours have long been plagued by memories of Japan's 1910-45 colonisation of the peninsula. In recent months, the question of compensation for South Koreans forced to work for Japanese occupiers has been a particular source of friction.

Ties between Washington's two biggest Asian allies took a sharp turn for the worse this month when Japan restricted exports of high-tech materials to South Korea. The curbs threaten global supplies of memory chips and smartphones.

Japan has denied that the dispute over compensation for labourers is behind the export curbs, even though a Japanese government minister cited broken trust with South Korea over the labour dispute in announcing the export restrictions.

Instead, Japan has cited "inadequate management" of sensitive items exported to South Korea.

Japanese media reported that hydrogen fluoride, one of the three materials covered by the Japanese curbs that can also be used in chemical weapons, had been shipped to North Korea after being exported to South Korea.

South Korea denied that with President Moon Jae-in calling the reported accusation a "grave challenge". The Japanese government has said it did not make any accusation about materials going to North Korea.

Nevertheless, South Korea hit back on Tuesday with the chief of its National Intelligence Service (NIS) telling a parliament committee on intelligence that Japan was very "lukewarm and passive" in terms of implementing UN sanctions.

The intelligence chief, Suh Hoon, told legislators Japan had recently allowed the entry of vessels suspected of making illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil or coal products to North Korean ships in violations of UN sanctions, said Lee Eun-jae, one of the lawmakers briefed by the agency said.

A spokesman for the NIS confirmed that Mr Suh had briefed the legislators but declined to give details.

A Japanese government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Officials from the two sides met in Tokyo on Friday to discuss the export restrictions but they failed to make any progress. Instead, they have been exchanging rebukes about what each side said publicly after the five-hour talks.

Japanese Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko said on Tuesday it was regrettable that South Korea had given an erroneous account of the talks.

Japan had lodged a protest with South Korea, saying it had broken an agreement on what the two sides would disclose, a Japanese trade ministry official said on the weekend. .

Meanwhile, the old acrimony about Japan's wartime behaviour looks set to flare up again with South Koreans forced to work for Japanese occupiers seeking a court order to forcibly liquidate Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' assets to compensate them, their lawyers said.

South Korea's Supreme Court last year ordered the Japanese company to compensate 10 forced labour victims, drawing a strong rebuke from Japan, which believes the matter was settled under a 1965 treaty.

The lawyers said they would file court papers seeking the sale of Mitsubishi's assets, as it had failed to respond by a Monday deadline to requests for discussions on the case.

"For plaintiffs who are over 90 years old, the process set by the law can no longer be delayed," the lawyers said in a statement.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had no immediate comment.

REUTERS