Japan Asks South Korea To Lift Import Ban On Sea Food

Illustration of Japanese seafood sales. (Wikimedia Commons/Raita Futo)

JAKARTA - Japan's Minister of Agriculture on Monday asked South Korea's Foreign Minister to lift restrictions on imports of its seafood imposed after the PLTN Fukushima disaster in 2011.

This was discussed at a meeting of Japanese Ministers of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun in Seoul ahead of a possible visit by President Lee Jae-myung to Japan later this month.

"I have high hopes that the relevant ministries will encourage smooth communication towards the rapid lifting of the ban," Minister Koizumi told reporters after the meeting.

However, Minister Koizumi refused to say how Foreign Minister Cho responded to this matter.

The meeting was held after Minister Koizumi attended a trilateral meeting of agricultural ministers in Incheon with his colleagues from China and South Korea.

Ginseng Country is known to have banned imports of Japanese Terbi Sun country seafood from Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures after the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which was damaged by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Not only that, Seoul also requires eight other Japanese prefectures to provide radiation inspection certificates.

"The trust in Japanese food has fully recovered," said Minister Koizumi.

It is known that the Governments of Japan and South Korea are regulating the visit of the President of South Korea to negotiate with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, according to diplomatic sources.

In June, China lifted a ban on imports of Japanese seafood imposed in August 2023, when Japan began disposing of treated radioactive waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, although some restrictions remain in effect.