Japan Wants to Establish An Economic Cooperation Fund to Pay Forced Laborers from World War II

I seriously doubt the Moon administration will cut any deal with the Japanese on the forced labor issue because what will the Korean left campaign on in the Parliamentary elections next year? They need this issue as a distractor from the economic woes facing the country and the Cho Kuk corruption mess:

 From creating a fund to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor to entrusting a civilian panel with addressing the thorny issue, a flurry of proposals are raising cautious hope for a thaw in frosty ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

Diplomatic circles, scholars and media in both countries have put forward the ideas while Seoul and Tokyo have been exploring a diplomatic off-ramp — or at least a path for de-escalation — through a series of high-level or working-level talks in recent months.

“These proposals illustrate the resilience of the Seoul-Tokyo relationship at work, when both countries apparently feel fatigued about their ties having long been on a collision course,” Nam Chang-hee, a professor of international politics at Inha University, said.

This week, Japan’s Kyodo News reported that Seoul and Tokyo are weighing the idea that the government and companies in South Korea, with the participation of Japanese firms, set up a fund under the name of “economic cooperation,” not as compensation for forced labor.

Seoul’s foreign ministry rejected the report as “untrue,” while reiterating its “openness” to searching for a solution “acceptable to the victims and people of both countries.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what I think is going on is that each side trying to create the appearance that they are the ones that are being reasonable by trying to work towards a solution knowing full well one will not be agreed upon.