South Korea to suspend visas and visa waivers for Japan

South Korea said yesterday that it would suspend visas and visa waivers for Japan in response to Tokyo's travel restrictions on South Koreans, as fears over the spreading coronavirus rekindled a feud between the neighbours dating back to before World War II.

South Korea's curbs, which will take effect on Monday, also include special entry procedures for non-Japanese foreigners arriving from Japan, Vice-Foreign Minister Cho Sei-young told a briefing.

At present, Japanese can visit South Korea for 90 days without a visa, and those already in the country will be allowed to stay for that period.

The moves came just hours after Seoul summoned the Japanese envoy to protest against Japan's decision to quarantine South Korean visitors for two weeks.

Japan is among almost 100 countries to impose curbs on travellers from South Korea, which has suffered 44 deaths and 6,593 infections in the biggest outbreak outside China.

The number of cases in Japan was around 1,060 yesterday, with new infections in Yamaguchi prefecture, reported NHK.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday that Japan will suspend existing visas for visitors from China and South Korea, and quarantine them for two weeks. The measure would start on Monday. Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the quarantine would take the form of a request for



them to stay in their hotels.

"If the Japanese government does not withdraw their decision... we cannot help but devise necessary countermeasures, including reciprocal measures," South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told Japanese Ambassador Koji Tomita earlier in the day.

"We express deep regret towards the unjust measures taken by the Japanese government."

Seoul has protested to Singapore and Vietnam over similar curbs.

The number of new cases fell to 505 in South Korea yesterday, from 760 the previous day, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Vice-Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said the authorities had almost finished tests on more than 200,000 followers of a church in south-eastern Daegu at the centre of the outbreak. Smaller clusters elsewhere include a new one reported yesterday at a hospital in Seongnam, south-east of the capital.

South Korea's National Security Council said yesterday that Tokyo faced "mistrust from the international community due to its opaque, passive" response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Difficult relations between the two sides date from Japan's sometimes brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. Its use of Korean girls and women in military brothels during World War II still prompts fury in South Korea.