A $5.2 billion compensation deal struck by Germany with representatives of victims of forced labor during World War II, to be shared by the government and industry, could serve as a model for Japan in dealing with redress claims by Asian wartime laborers, according to two key negotiators.

James Bindenagel, U.S. State Department envoy for Holocaust issues, and Otto Graf Lambsdorff, former German minister of economics, presented the recent German compensation package to the Japan National Press Club earlier this week. The two men were the main negotiators in helping reach the settlement.

"These payments provide valuable assistance to the survivors, all of whom are old and many of whom are poor," Bindenagel said.

Monetary compensation may not fully compensate the victims, but this should "not prevent governments from doing what is needed and possible," he said.

The issue of redress for Koreans, Chinese and other Asians uprooted and forced to work in Japanese mines, factories and construction sites during the war has long been considered a closed book by Japan.

Historians estimate that on the Korean Peninsula alone, 6 million Koreans were taken to Japan between 1939 to 1945 to make up for the wartime labor shortage.

Authoritarian governments and the Cold War, as well as massive Japanese aid to the region, tended to dampen calls for compensation, but since the issue was reopened, many Asian victims have been finding it difficult to gain a hearing from Japan.

Tokyo has been unsympathetic, arguing that postwar treaties closed the book on compensation claims, and lawsuits in Japanese courts have mostly been unsuccessful, with judges saying the wrongs occurred too long ago.

But in December 2000, a landmark $4.6 million settlement was reached between Japan's largest general contractor, Kajima Corp., and close to 1,000 Chinese nationals whom the company's predecessor forced into labor camps during the war.

This could set a precedent for other groups seeking reparations from Japan and Japanese industries for wartime atrocities, the two officials said.

The case was similar for Germany and its industries until the creation of a fund that includes $2.6 billion contributed by the government and $1.6 billion pledged by industry gave a sense of closure to the issue last year.

The U.S.-German fund also includes a $520 million fund created by U.S. companies that had German operations during the war in exchange for legal protection from lawsuits in the United States.