Korea, Japan Hold Talks on ‘Comfort Women’

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea and Japan yesterday discussed their long-running dispute over Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery – the first such talks since their leaders vowed to push for a mutually acceptable settlement.

The meeting between senior foreign ministry officials from both sides followed last week’s summit in Seoul between South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“It’s difficult to go into details, but it can be said that we’re moving one step at a time towards our goal,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted a government official as saying after the talks. “We have agreed to continue talks on areas where differences exist,” the unnamed official said.

South Korea is demanding a formal apology and compensation for the Korean women forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese military army brothels during World War II. Japan maintains that the dispute was settled in a 1965 normalization agreement, which saw Tokyo make a total payment of $800 million in grants or loans to its former colony.

The two sides have now held 10 rounds of talks on the issue since April last year – with no tangible progress. Yesterday’s meeting was in the same framework, but was closely monitored for any signs that the Park-Abe summit had shifted the discussion lines. In what was their first one-on-one meeting, the two leaders had vowed to speed up consultations to resolve the dispute, which Ms. Park called the “biggest stumbling block” to normalized ties.

She had previously rebuffed multiple proposals for a summit with Mr. Abe, arguing that Tokyo had yet to properly atone for its wartime past and 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.

Presiding over a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Ms. Park had again stressed that the comfort women issue should be settled “as early as possible.”

Historians say up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea but also from China, Indonesia and other Asian nations, were forced into sexual slavery during the war. South Korea has only 47 surviving comfort women.

“Our government’s position is constant and firm. The comfort women issue should be resolved urgently,” foreign ministry spokesman Cho June-Hyuck told a press briefing ahead of yesterday’s talks. The Japanese government should present a solution “that victims can accept,” he said.

Japan’s top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Tokyo had “yet to decide” on what measures might be put forward as a solution.

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