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South Korea and Japan Reach Deal on Wartime ‘Comfort Women’ South Korea and Japan Reach Deal on Wartime ‘Comfort Women’
(35 minutes later)
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea and Japan announced on Monday that they had reached a “final and irrevocable resolution” of their decades-old historical dispute over Korean women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan’s Imperial Army in the early 20th century.SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea and Japan announced on Monday that they had reached a “final and irrevocable resolution” of their decades-old historical dispute over Korean women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan’s Imperial Army in the early 20th century.
The landmark agreement will remove one of the most intractable logjams in relations between South Korea and Japan, its former colonial master, both crucial allies to the United States. The landmark agreement will remove one of the most intractable logjams in relations between South Korea and Japan, its former colonial master, both crucial allies to the United States. The so-called comfort women have been the most painful legacy of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, which lasted from 1910 until Japan’s World War II defeat in 1945.
The so-called comfort women have been the most painful legacy of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, which lasted from 1910 until Japan’s World War II defeat in 1945. Forty-six former comfort women are still alive in South Korea.
“The Japanese government bears a heartfelt responsibility” for recruiting comfort women “with the involvement of its military” and for “severely injuring the honor and dignity of many women,” the foreign minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, said on Monday, reading the agreement during a news conference in Seoul.“The Japanese government bears a heartfelt responsibility” for recruiting comfort women “with the involvement of its military” and for “severely injuring the honor and dignity of many women,” the foreign minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, said on Monday, reading the agreement during a news conference in Seoul.
Mr. Kishida also said that his boss, the hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, had expressed “apologies and remorse from his heart.”Mr. Kishida also said that his boss, the hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, had expressed “apologies and remorse from his heart.”
Although Japan had previously offered similar apologies, as in a 1993 statement by its chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yohei Kono, the agreement on Monday signaled a compromise for Mr. Abe. As recently as last year, Mr. Abe and his conservative political allies in Japan had advocated reviewing the evidence that led to Mr. Kono’s apology.Although Japan had previously offered similar apologies, as in a 1993 statement by its chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yohei Kono, the agreement on Monday signaled a compromise for Mr. Abe. As recently as last year, Mr. Abe and his conservative political allies in Japan had advocated reviewing the evidence that led to Mr. Kono’s apology.
Under the agreement, the Japanese government will provide 1 billion yen, or $8.3 million, to a foundation that the South Korean government will establish to initiate various projects to heal the wounds of the women.Under the agreement, the Japanese government will provide 1 billion yen, or $8.3 million, to a foundation that the South Korean government will establish to initiate various projects to heal the wounds of the women.
The deal was announced after Mr. Kishida met with his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, in Seoul. Their meeting came after 12 rounds of negotiations the two governments have held since spring last year to narrow their gaps on the dispute. That Tokyo will provide money directly from the national budget is a potentially significant departure. A previous fund established after Mr. Kono’s 1993 apology, the Asian Women’s Fund, relied on private donors, and was never fully accepted in South Korea. Many comfort women refused to take compensation money that the fund offered.
Historians say that at least tens of thousands of women in Asia, many of them Korean, were lured or coerced to work at brothels from the early 1930s until the end of World War II. The Korean women who survived the war had lived in silence because of the stigma, until some of them began speaking out in the early 1990s. A total of 238 former comfort women have since come forward in South Korea, but now only 46 of them remain alive, most of them in their 80s and 90s.
Initial reactions to the resolution from former comfort women in South Korea were far from welcoming.
“I will ignore it completely,” said Lee Yong-soo, 88, during a news conference held after the agreement was announced.
Ms. Lee said that the deal fell far short of the women’s longstanding demand that Japan admit “legal responsibility” and offer formal “reparations” for “forcibly” recruiting comfort women and running “comfort stations,” front-line brothels in which the women said they were treated like subhuman sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.
Japan maintained that all legal issues stemming from its colonial rule of Korea were resolved with the 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two countries. Negotiators from both nations forged a compromise with the vaguely worded agreement on Monday, which did not clarify whether the responsibility that the Japanese government acknowledged was legal or moral.
The deal was announced after Mr. Kishida met with his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, in Seoul. Their meeting came after 12 rounds of negotiations that the two governments have held since spring 2014 to narrow their gaps on the dispute.
Mr. Yun and Mr. Kishida said they hoped that the deal would open a “new phase” in bilateral ties, long strained over historical disputes stemming from colonial rule. They also said that Seoul and Tokyo would refrain from criticizing each other over the issue at the United Nations and elsewhere.Mr. Yun and Mr. Kishida said they hoped that the deal would open a “new phase” in bilateral ties, long strained over historical disputes stemming from colonial rule. They also said that Seoul and Tokyo would refrain from criticizing each other over the issue at the United Nations and elsewhere.
Washington has repeatedly urged Japan and South Korea to resolve the dispute, a stumbling block in American efforts to strengthen a joint front with its Asian allies to better cope with China’s growing assertiveness in the region, as well as North Korea’s attempt to build a nuclear arsenal.
Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, a research group, said Mr. Abe had chosen a pragmatic approach that elevated economic and security ties over the bristly historical revisionism he has sometimes championed.
“Team Abe is basically realist, though Abe himself has sometimes veered from that,” Mr. Watanabe said.
Stable relations with South Korea, he added, were vital to Mr. Abe’s most cherished foreign policy goal: nurturing alliances to counter the growing power of China. “Ultimately, Abe believes in the balance of power.”