hankyoreh

Park Gu-yeon, the first deputy director of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, gives a briefing on the dispatch of a team of Korean experts to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan during a briefing at the central government complex in Seoul on May 12. (Yonhap)

Bureau chiefs from the foreign ministries of Korea and Japan held working-level talks on May 12 to discuss the details of a Korean inspection team’s visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on May 23-24. The inspection team will be visiting facilities connected with the radioactive water that Japan means to discharge into the ocean.

The Korean government’s plan is to assemble an inspection team of twenty or so experts to review the safety of the planned discharge of contaminated water. But Japan’s opposition to receiving civilian experts, as well as the fact that inspectors will only be able to visually review the facilities as part of their “on-site confirmation,” is likely to fuel suspicions that the inspection is little more than a dog and pony show.

“The objective of this inspection is to review the safety of the entire release [of the contaminated water] into the ocean,” said Park Gu-yeon, first deputy director of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, during a briefing at the central government complex in Seoul on May 12.

“We’re planning [for the inspectors] to directly confirm the overall operational status of the facilities for purifying and discharging the contaminated water and our capabilities for analyzing radioactive materials and to acquire the information we will need for scientific and technical analysis,” Park said.

Park’s explanation notwithstanding, it seems likely that the inspection team will only be given an “on-site confirmation” of the overall operational status of those facilities. While collecting and analyzing samples of contaminated water would be a key component of a safety review, sample collection isn’t part of the government’s plans.

That’s consistent with the Japanese government’s stance. In a press release the previous day, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said the Korean government’s inspection team would only be given a briefing about the current status of contaminated water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System.

In effect, the inspection team’s visit is more of a field trip than a serious mission to review the safety of the contaminated water at the nuclear plant.

“The Korean inspection team won’t be assessing or confirming the safety of the contaminated water as the International Atomic Energy Agency has,” Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Nishimura Yasutoshi said in a daily briefing after a Cabinet meeting on May 9.

Another issue is that even if the inspection team’s visit produces actionable data, the results of its review won’t be binding.

“There are no systems in place that allow one sovereign state to determine the actions taken by another state,” Park said.

Importantly, Japan is opposed to Korea including experts from the private sector or civil society on the inspection team.

That’s because “Japan regards the inspection team as an intergovernmental matter,” said an official from the Korean government.

But some observers think the Japanese government is uncomfortable with letting in experts or activists who aren’t under the government’s thumb and might therefore make remarks that clash with the current administration’s Japan-friendly lean.

The Korean government is expected to assemble a 20-person inspection team that largely consists of experts in nuclear safety and the marine environment from government-affiliated agencies and organizations.

“It’s activists and experts, and not bureaucrats, who are capable of drawing attention to issues with the contaminated water at Fukushima,” said Sejong University professor Yuji Hosaka, an expert in Korea-Japan relations, in a telephone conversation with the Hankyoreh.

“Sending government officials on a two-day inspection tour amounts to standing behind Japan’s position.”

In the meeting on Friday, Korean and Japanese diplomats reportedly arranged the details of the Korean inspection team’s schedule and the facilities it will visit.

The talks were led by Yun Hyun-soo, head of the Korean Foreign Ministry’s bureau for climate change, energy, environment and scientific affairs, and Atsushi Kaifu, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry\'s disarmament, non-proliferation and science department.

The inspection team is expected to stay in Japan for a total of four days, including two days touring the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

By Shin Hyeong-cheol, staff reporter

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