Tokyo on Friday welcomed a World Trade Organization panel's ruling that Seoul's continued import ban on seafood from Fukushima Prefecture — home to the 2011 nuclear disaster — and other parts of Japan amounts to the nation taking "arbitrarily and unjustifiably" discriminatory measures.
A dispute settlement panel under the WTO published a report Thursday detailing its ruling in favor of Japan's complaint against a blanket import ban imposed by South Korea on all fishery products from the prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba.
While acknowledging Seoul's measures against seafood from Fukushima and the other nearby prefectures were justified initially, the WTO report said maintaining the ban to date is "more trade-restrictive than required," and recommended that the ban on 28 kinds of fish be lifted, as requested by Japan.
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