Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday ties with South Korea are in a “severe state,” signaling that simmering tensions between the neighbors a
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday ties with South Korea are in a “severe state,” signaling that simmering tensions between the neighbors and U. S. security allies could worsen.
Tokyo and Seoul have sparred over decisions in South Korea’s top court requiring two of Japan’s biggest companies to pay compensation to Koreans forced into labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would consider countermeasures to protect Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. assets from seizure by South Korean courts.
“Relations between Japan and South Korea are in a severe state,” Suga, Japan’s top government spokesman, told a regular news conference in Tokyo, calling recent moves by Seoul “regrettable.”
Mistrust between the two neighbors has also grown as both sides trade accusations about who was in the wrong over a December incident in which Japan claims a South Korean naval vessel used a target-lock radar on its patrol aircraft. Seoul argued the plane was flying in a “provocative” manner and called on Tokyo to apologize.
On Monday, Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers called for U. N. Security Council discussions on the incident in which a South Korean warship directed its fire-control radar at a Japanese patrol plane.
At a joint meeting of the LDP Policy Research Council’s National Defense Division and the Research Commission on National Security, several participants called for tough actions against South Korea.
