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South Korea, Japan reach settlement on wartime Korean sex slaves South Korea, Japan reach settlement on wartime Korean sex slaves
(about 4 hours later)
TOKYO — Japan and South Korea Monday made a breakthrough in their decades-long dispute over the “comfort women” used as wartime sex-slaves, with Tokyo apologizing and agreeing to pay $8.3 million into a fund for remaining victims. TOKYO — Japan and South Korea said Monday they had “finally and irreversibly” resolved a dispute over wartime sex slaves that has bedeviled relations between the two countries for decades.
Seoul promised this would be the end of the dispute — which has been officially “resolved” before — if Japan fulfills its side of the agreement. In something of a surprise development, the two countries’ foreign ministers met in Seoul to finalize a deal that will see Japan put $8.3 million into a South Korean fund to support the 46 surviving so-called “comfort women” and to help them recover their “honor and dignity” and heal their “psychological wounds.”
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean president Park Geun-hye were due to talk on the phone on Monday evening to seal the deal. The agreement came after they met for the first time on the sidelines of a summit in November. The move will be welcomed in Washington, which has been both concerned and annoyed by the fighting between its two closest allies in Asia. This year marks seven decades since the end of World War II and the end of the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula.
“The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women, and the government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective,” Fumio Kishida, Japan’s foreign minister, said in a press conference with his South Korean counterpart Monday. Independent historians have concluded that as many as 200,000 women and girls — from occupied countries such as Korea, China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations — were coerced by the Japanese Imperial Army to work as sex slaves during the war.
“As Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister Abe expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women,” Kishida said. “We made a final and irreversible solution at this 70th anniversary milestone,” Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo after speaking to his South Korean counterpart, President Park Geun-hye, on the phone.
But some analysts questioned whether this deal could hold, given the strength of emotions on both sides, and some of the 46 comfort women still alive rejected the agreement because it did not resolve outstanding legal claims. Earlier, in Seoul, his foreign minister had said Abe "expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences."
There has been a level of frustration in Japan over the comfort women, which Tokyo considered was formally resolved in 1965, when it normalized relations with South Korea, its former colony. After the landmark Kono Statement of 1993 concluded that the Japanese army had forced the women into sexual slavery, the Japanese government of the time formally apologized. “I feel we’ve fulfilled the responsibility of the generation living now,” Abe said after his call with Park. “I’d like this to be a trigger for Japan and South Korea to cooperate and open a new era."
But South Korea has never fully accepted the apology, particularly not in recent years when associates of Abe and other conservatives repeated suggestions that the women were mere prostitutes. In Seoul, Park said it was “especially meaningful” to reach the agreement before the end of 2015, the 50th anniversary of normalized relations between Japan and South Korea.
Independent historians have concluded that as many as 200,000 women and girls — from occupied countries such as Korea, China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations — were coerced by the Japanese Imperial Army to work as sex slaves. “The most important thing is for Japan to diligently and promptly implement what has been agreed to restore comfort women victims’ honor and dignity and heal their wounded hearts,” Park said, according to the Yonhap News Agency, after meeting with Fumio Kishida, Japan’s foreign minister.
Seoul promised this would be the end of the dispute — which has been officially “resolved” before – if Japan fulfills its side of the agreement. It comes less than two months after the two leaders held their first summit, and after the resolution of a high-profile court-case, with a Japanese journalist this month acquitted of defaming Park.
Notably, both sides agreed to stop “accusing or criticizing each other regarding this issue in the international community, including at the United Nations.” Some of this battle has played out in the United States, with South Koreans erecting memorials to comfort women and Japan trying to have references to “forcible recruitment” removed from American college textbooks.
Tokyo considered the dispute was formally resolved in 1965, when it normalized relations with South Korea and offered $800 million in compensation in 1965 for its colonial-era brutality.
Japan officially apologized in 1993, after a government study that led Yohei Kono, the chief cabinet secretary at the time, to offer Japan’s “sincere apologies and remorse to all those . . . who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.”
But the issue has remained emotionally charged, with many South Koreans in recent years seizing upon statements by Abe’s associates and other conservatives that the women were mere prostitutes. Park and other politicians have repeatedly called on Abe to atone properly.
Tomiichi Murayama, the former Japanese prime minister who was the first Japanese premier to officially apologize and helped to establish a fund for the women, said the deal was encouraging.
“Now that this bottleneck comfort women issue is solved, I hope Japanese and South Korean relations will progress positively,” he told NHK, the public broadcaster.
Some analysts questioned whether this deal could hold, given the strength of opposition on both sides. One early sticking point: a bronze statue of a girl, symbolizing a “comfort woman,” outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Japan has been asking for the statue to be removed, and South Korea has now agreed to explore the possibility of moving it.
Furthermore, some of the 46 “comfort women” still alive rejected the agreement because it did not resolve outstanding legal claims.
Lee Yong-su, an 88-year-old former comfort woman, said she would “ignore it all.”
“I don’t think comfort women victims were even considered [in this resolution],” she told reporters after the deal, saying Japan had still not taken legal responsibility the comfort women issue.
In a post on its Facebook page, a South Korean NGO called “Justice to the Comfort Women” noted that Abe did not make an apology himself, but had his foreign minister read it, and described it as ambiguous. “Therefore, it is impossible to accept today’s apology as a sincere one,” the post said.
The group also chastised the South Korean government for agreeing to the deal, saying it was “humiliating and disappointing” that Park’s administration would try to move the statue and refrain from criticizing Japan.
Yoongjung Seo in Seoul and Yuki Oda in Tokyo contributed to this report.