This Kyodo News photo, filed Oct. 23, 2023, shows a Japanese Air Self-Defense Force aircraft parked at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo on Oct. 21, after returning from Israel with Japanese nationals, 18 South Koreans and one foreign family member in an evacuation from the war-torn region. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — A Japanese aircraft was bringing a group of South Korean nationals, along with Japanese nationals, from Israel, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Friday, the second such flight Japan has offered after South Korea brought Japanese citizens home on its plane last month.
The Air Self-Defense Force aircraft carrying 15 South Koreans and one foreign national family member related to a Korean national, departed from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, at 4:47 p.m. Thursday (local time) and is on its way to Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, the foreign ministry said.
This is the second flight Tokyo is providing to Seoul to aid in the evacuation of Koreans from the war-torn region.
A total of 420 South Korean citizens remain in Israel, the ministry added.
Eighteen South Koreans and a foreign family member returned aboard a Japanese aircraft on Oct. 21 as Japan offered to share some 20 seats with South Koreans.
The proposal was seen as returning the favor to Seoul after a South Korean military aircraft brought back 51 Japanese people, along with 163 South Koreans, from Israel on Oct. 14.
The mutual cooperation between the two neighboring countries comes amid a significant warming of bilateral relations that had been badly frayed by a dispute over compensating Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
In March, South Korea said it will not seek compensation from Japanese companies but make up for the victims’ suffering on its own.
(Yonhap)
