Seoul Confirms Urging Japan To Remove High-Tech Export Restrictions - Reports

Seoul Confirms Urging Japan to Remove High-Tech Export Restrictions - Reports

South Korean officials have confirmed that they did ask Japan to cancel its restrictions on high-tech exports, local media reported on Saturday, in the wake of Tokyo's claims that no such requests were made by Seoul

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th July, 2019) South Korean officials have confirmed that they did ask Japan to cancel its restrictions on high-tech exports, local media reported on Saturday, in the wake of Tokyo's claims that no such requests were made by Seoul.

Japan imposed curbs on some high-tech exports to South Korea last week, stating that such a move was based on national security concerns. According to media reports, Tokyo is also considering removing South Korea from its "white list" of countries that can easily buy Japanese-made products that could be used for military purposes among other items.

"I said the restrictions are regrettable. In other words, I asked for them to be removed," a South Korean official who took part in a meeting at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry told the Kyodo News agency, adding that Tokyo had refused to lift its restrictive measures.

The newly introduced measures will mostly affect such South Korean giants as Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. Relations between Tokyo and Seoul have been worsening since October, when South Korea's top court ordered a Japanese steel-maker to pay compensation to former Korean laborers the company forced to work during the World War II. Other Japanese companies have since faced similar requests. On May 20, Japan suggested that South Korea launch an arbitration process over the issue.

Japan ruled over the Korean Peninsula, then its colony, from 1910 to 1945. In 2005, the two countries signed an agreement in which South Korea agreed never to make further compensation demands, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million from Japan as restitution for its colonial rule.