Park Hong-geun: "Visit to Japan should not end as a nostalgic trip... Must extract Japan's apology and solution"

President Yoon Urges Resolution of Current Issues

The floor leadership of the Democratic Party of Korea urged President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is visiting Japan on the 16th, to "at least fulfill the basic role as the President of the Republic of Korea on behalf of the suffering of forced labor victims." They called for the Japanese government to apologize to the forced labor victims and to resolve current issues such as the postponement of GSOMIA, the withdrawal of the Fukushima nuclear power plant contaminated water discharge plan, and others.

Park Hong-geun, the floor leader of the Democratic Party, stated at the party's policy coordination meeting on the same day, "This visit to Japan should not end as a nostalgic trip for President Yoon. Moreover, major issues between Korea and Japan, such as historical matters, must never be approached with domestic political calculations," emphasizing this point.

In an interview with Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun reported the previous day, President Yoon emphasized, “The fact that Prime Minister Kishida invited me like this and that I am visiting Japan itself is a significant progress and achievement compared to the Korea-Japan relations so far.”

Park Hong-geun, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is speaking at the policy coordination meeting held at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on the 16th. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Regarding this, Floor Leader Park said, "Survivors of forced labor victims have officially rejected the government's solution, and the majority of our people oppose it, yet the President of the Republic of Korea seems to be worried only about Japan and trying to reassure them," and pointed out, "It is puzzling that President Yoon’s actions go against public sentiment despite knowing the strong opposition of the people."

He added, "The ‘third-party compensation plan’ is clearly a humiliating solution that throws away even the ‘sincere apology’ and ‘acknowledgment of the coerciveness of mobilization’ that Japanese war crime companies themselves included 12 years ago," and said, "President Yoon is visiting Japan today leaving all of this behind."

Furthermore, through this visit to Japan, he urged to bring out an apology and solution from the Japanese government and to agenda and enforce the four demands previously made by the Democratic Party. On the 14th, Floor Leader Park presented the realization tasks for this visit as ▲ postponement of GSOMIA normalization until Japan lifts export restrictions ▲ withdrawal of the Fukushima nuclear power plant contaminated water discharge plan ▲ cessation of territorial claims over Dokdo and indiscriminate provocations ▲ agenda of the occupation rights of the 7th block in the southern part of Marado.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.