JAPANESE Government
TO

(The Nihon Keizai, Jan. 14)

The Japanese Government has prepared a concessive plam: regarding Japanese property claim against the ROK in order to promote the negotiations between the two countries. Under the new plan Japan will withdraw her insistence hitherto made that she has right to her forever properties in Korea and recognize the ROK side's insistence that Japan has lost the right to those property in accordance with Paragraph B, Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
The Government is preparing to formally propose this new plan to the ROK side if the latter agrees to the settlement of the detainee issue prior to that of other pending issues and withdraws her property claims against Japan.
Foreign Minister in his meeting with Minister KIM of the Korean Mission on Jan. 10 made a statement full of implication that "both sides should settle their issues through mutual concessions without being particular about their past insistence," and this statement is based on the new plan.
The Japanese Government expects that the ROK side will agree to promoting the negotiations by grasping such an intention of the Japanese side.
Paragraph B, Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty provides that Japan recognizes the effect of the measures the United States Government took in South Korea in regard to Japanese properties there." The Japanese side has so far insisted that Japan under the said provision of the peace treaty did not denounce even the right to demand the price of private Japanese properties disposed of by the United States Government (that is estimated at about 14 billion Yen at the time of the end of the Pacific war accoraing to report by repatriates) and accordingly she stil has the right to demand.
On the other hand, the ROK side has insisted that Japan's claim to those properties lapsed in accordance with Paragraph B, Article 3 of the said peace treaty, and thus demanded that Japan renounce her property claim against the ROK unilaterally. Not only that, the ROK side made a claim for consolation money to Koreans requisitioned during the Pacific war, for properties in Japan of organizations with their head offices in Korea such as Japanese branches of the former Korean Bank, and for Korean properties in Japan such as gold reserve for former Korean Bank notes. In addition to this, the ROK side hinted to demand the return of Korean art objects that were legally acquired by the Japanese.
There fore both sides squarely conflicted with each other over the property issue and this issue has become the greatest obstacle to the conclusion of the ROK-Japan talks.
This time the Japanese side has prepared a concessive plan that recognizes the lapse of Japanese property claim against the ROK, and this is because the Council of Deliberating Japanese Properties Overseas has submitted a draft report to the Government and the latter has been made possible to compensate for the loss of private Japanese proparties, and also because the Governomtn intends to promote the release of the detained Japanese fishermen. This new plan differs from her previous plan calling for mutual cancellation of both sides' claim in the point that the former recognizes the lapse of Japanese property claim against the ROK, retroactive to the time of the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty,
Besides this, the Japanese side is considering of paying consolation money to Koreans requisitioned during the war, although it does not recognize in principle the ROK's claim against Japan, and is studying to negotiate with the ROK side for a formula of economic cooperation between the two countries. Further, the Japanese side is prepared to retract the Kubota statement.
However, this new plan requires the ROK side to agree to settlement of the detainee issue prior to that of other pending issues between the two countries and also to withdraw its undue claims against Japan.
As the ROK side is not likely to change soon its present attitude that the precondition of the resumption of the ROK-Japan talks is the unilateral renunciation by Japan of her property claim against the ROK, the negotiations are expected to be deadlocked.