Lawmakers of South Korea, Japan to meet next week to discuss trade conflict

A delegation of Korean lawmakers will visit Japan next week to meet their Japanese counterparts calling for the withdrawal of Japan's export curbs against Korea, in a bipartisan effort to settle the worsening trade row between the two countries, political sources said Tuesday.

The nine-member delegation, led by Rep. Suh Chungwon, an independent lawmaker, is planning to visit Tokyo from July 31 to Aug. 1, to meet Japanese lawmakers to call for Tokyo to immediately withdraw its trade restrictions against Korea, according to an exclusive document acquired by The Korea Times. The delegation plans to take the resolution adopted Monday in the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee to Japan.

On the same day, National Assembly Speaker Moon Heesang delivered personal letters to Japan and the U.S. calling for Japan not to remove Korea from the whitelist of countries, according to National Assembly spokesman Han Minsoo.

The document says the delegation will meet with their Japanese counterparts to discuss Korea-Japan trade regulations and look for ways to settle the issue of compensation for victims of forced labor during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation.

The bipartisan delegation includes ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lawmakers Kang Changil, Won Hyeyoung and Kim Jinpyo; main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) lawmakers Won Yoochul, Yoon Sanghyun, Kim Gwanglim; Rep. Ji Sangwook of the Bareunmirae Party and Rep. Cho Baesook of the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace.

On the Japan side, House of Representatives Speaker Tadamori Oshima; Rep. Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP); Rep. Fukushiro Nukaga, chair of the Japan-South Korea parliamentarians' league; Rep. Takeo Kawamura, former chief of the LDP; Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of Komeito; Yukio Edano, head of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan; Yuichiro Tamaki, head of Democratic Party for the People; Kazuo Shii, head of the Japanese Communist Party; and Yoshiro Mori, former prime minister and head of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Organizing Committee will also meet with the Korean delegation. The group also plans to meet with the leadership body of the Korean Residents Union in Japan, an organization representing ethnic South Koreans in Japan.

It will be the first time for key lawmakers from both countries to meet with each other to discuss trade and historical issues.

Japan has implemented export curbs on shipments of key materials to Korea, critical for the production of semiconductors and displays in a possible move to protest Seoul's Supreme Court ruling ordering Japanese firms to compensate the surviving victims of wartime forced labor. Korea is calling for Japan's cancellation of the anti-trade measure in the international community while looking for ways to localize the production of high-tech products which have been dependent on imports.

Earlier, the National Assembly pledged to diversify its channels to more actively engage with its foreign counterparts to tackle current political affairs between countries.

The eight-member delegation, led by Rep. Chung Syekyun of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, a former parliamentary speaker, will also visit the U.S. from July 24 to 28 to meet with U.S. and Japanese lawmakers in their biannual meeting and relay the unfairness of Japan's trade measures, according to National Assembly spokesman Han Minsoo during a press briefing.