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| Japan to say sorry to South Korea in deal to end dispute over wartime sex slaves | Japan to say sorry to South Korea in deal to end dispute over wartime sex slaves |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan have reached a deal to resolve a decades-long impasse over Korean women forced into Japanese military-run brothels during the second world war. | The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan have reached a deal to resolve a decades-long impasse over Korean women forced into Japanese military-run brothels during the second world war. |
| The Japanese foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, said in Seoul on Monday that his prime minister, Shinzo Abe, offered a “heartfelt” apology and that Tokyo would finance a £5.5m ($8.3m) aid fund for the elderly victims to be set up by South Korea. | |
| Related: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe stops short of new apology in war anniversary speech | Related: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe stops short of new apology in war anniversary speech |
| The issue of former Korean sex slaves, euphemistically known as “comfort women”, is the biggest source of friction in ties between Seoul and Tokyo. | The issue of former Korean sex slaves, euphemistically known as “comfort women”, is the biggest source of friction in ties between Seoul and Tokyo. |
| The neighbours are thriving democracies and trade partners but they have seen animosity rise since the 2012 inauguration of the hawkish Abe. | The neighbours are thriving democracies and trade partners but they have seen animosity rise since the 2012 inauguration of the hawkish Abe. |
| Japan appeared emboldened to make the overture after the first formal leaders’ meeting between the neighbours in more than three years in November, and after South Korean courts recently acquitted a Japanese reporter charged with defaming the country’s president. The courts also refused to review a complaint by a South Korean seeking individual compensation for Japan’s forceful mobilization of workers during colonial days. | |
| Many South Koreans feel lingering bitterness from the legacy of Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945. But South Korean officials have also faced calls to improve ties with Japan, the world’s third biggest economy and a regional powerhouse, not least from US officials eager for a strong united front against a rising China and North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear-armed missiles that could target the American mainland. | |
| Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, made the announcement after a closed door meeting at the South Korean foreign ministry in Seoul on Monday. | |
| Yun said the agreement is final and irreversible as long as Japan faithfully implements it promises. | |
| “Abe, as the prime minister of Japan, offers from his heart an apology and reflection for everyone who suffered lots of pain and received scars that are difficult to heal physically and mentally,” Kishida said. | |
| There has long been resistance in South Korea to past Japanese apologies because many wanted Japan to acknowledge that it has a legal responsibility for the women. | |
| Japan had argued that the issue was settled by a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic ties and was accompanied by more than $800m in economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul. | |
| Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sex for Japanese soldiers. In South Korea, there are 46 such surviving former sex slaves, mostly in their late 80s or early 90s. | |
| Better relations between South Korea and Japan are a priority for Washington. The two countries together host about 80,000 US troops and are members of now-stalled regional talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions in return for aid. |