Senior Japanese and South Korean diplomats on Wednesday held discussions on so-called comfort women, a thorny key issue between the two countries.
Junichi Ihara, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, represented Japan at the meeting in Seoul. His South Korean counterpart was Lee Sang Deuk, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s Northeast Asian Affairs Bureau.
South Korea has asked Japan to take “sincere” action quickly for such women—mainly Koreans who were forced to serve as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers in wartime—due to their advanced age.
The South Korean side was expected to stick to that stance at Wednesday’s meeting.
Japan’s position is that the comfort women issue has been resolved because war-related damages claims from South Korean individuals became invalid under a treaty concluded when the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1965.
The Japanese side hopes to win South Korea’s understanding by emphasizing Tokyo’s past efforts, such as government support for the now-defunct Asian Women’s Fund, which provided financial assistance to former comfort women.
South Korea sought to limit the bureau-head conference to the comfort women issue as a condition for accepting a summit meeting among Japanese, U.S. and South Korean leaders in The Hague, the Netherlands, in late March. Japan agreed to focus on the topic, at least at the first session.
Japan hopes for further talks between the two bureau heads on a wider range of pending issues, such as a territorial dispute over the South Korean-held Sea of Japan islands called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.
Jiji Press
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