SEOUL, July 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday called on Japan to return to a diplomatic stage to resolve the bilateral trade row, caused by Japan's stricter controls on its export to South Korea of materials vital to the South Korean tech industry.
Moon made the remarks during a meeting with his senior secretaries, saying it was a very unwise decision for Japan to unprecedentedly connect the historical issue with the economic one as it ran counter to the development of the bilateral relations.
Japan slapped tighter regulations early this month on its export to South Korea of three materials used to produce memory chips and display panels, which affect the manufacturing of TVs, smartphones and other tech products.
It was imposed in protest against the South Korean top court's rulings that ordered Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to compensate the South Korean victims who were forced into hard labor without pay during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
Moon said Japan took the unilateral measures with no diplomatic consultations and efforts, urging Japan to retract the unilateral pressure and return to the stage of diplomatic resolution.
The South Korean leader said Japan initially linked the South Korean top court's rulings with the trade issue, which gained no international support, and then changed its position to connect the issue to suspicions that South Korea smuggled strategic materials to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
Moon called Japan's changed positions a grave challenge to the South Korean government, which was making all-out efforts to develop inter-Korean relations and build peace on the peninsula within the sanctions framework.
He noted that there is no need to continue such consuming arguments, repeating its suggestion to let proper international organizations probe into whether South Korea or Japan had smuggled strategic materials to the DPRK.
Moon warned that Japan's export curbs would do more damage to the Japanese economy because such measures break confidence of South Korea in partnerships with Japan and lead South Korean companies to diversify import routes and localize necessary materials.
He stressed that his country will overcome this situation as it did in the past with the help of people's power.
