Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told the Japanese parliament that he is strongly and consistently demanding Seoul’s “proper responses” over South Korean court decisions on wartime forced labor issues. 

Answering lawmaker questions on Friday, Abe claimed that the South Korean government already compensated forced labor victims with 500 million dollars under a normalization treaty in 1965. 

He referred to the South Korean victims as workers from the Korean Peninsula in an apparent denial of the coercive nature in which Koreans were mobilized to power Japan’s war machine during the World War II. 

He also said Tokyo is calling for formal talks with the South Korean government and will unwaveringly deal with the issues based on international laws, including bringing it to an international court if Seoul does not respond. 

Early this month, the Japanese Foreign Ministry summoned South Korean Ambassador to Japan Lee Su-hoon to request formal discussions on the issues between the two governments based on the 1965 treaty. 

Late last year, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled in favor of dozens of Korean forced labor victims against Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. 

In a follow-up lawsuit, a court in Pohang decided last month to permit the seizure of assets from one of the two Japanese firms.