Despite an agreement between the leaders of Japan and South Korea to try to resolve as early as possible the dispute over Korean women forced into wartime Japanese brothels, the gap between the two sides is so wide that it is not certain whether they can settle the issue by the end of the year as Seoul hopes.
In her first talks with Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe on Monday in Seoul, South Korean President
Park Geun Hye said the issue poses “the biggest obstacle to efforts to improve bilateral ties,” and that it “must be quickly settled in a way that our people can accept.”
Park has urged Japan to offer a sincere apology and compensation to so-called comfort women, many of whom were from the Korean Peninsula, which was under Japan’s colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
But Japan maintains the issue of wartime compensation was settled legally when the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1965. The government also upholds a 1993 official apology over comfort women.
The apology by then Chief Cabinet Secretary
Yohei Kono acknowledged for the first time the involvement of the military and the use of coercion in recruiting women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during and before World War II.
On Monday, Abe and Park instructed their officials to speed up talks to address the issue. But experts say ending the dispute requires a “political decision” by the leaders because the two governments have failed to reach an agreement despite holding several rounds of senior officials’ talks on the matter.
“Going forward, South Korea should clearly state its definition of a ‘settlement’ of the issue,” said
Lee Won Deok, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at Kookmin University in Seoul. He said he also wants Japan to help move the two countries closer together.
Japan says South Korea has kept moving “the goal post” with regard to history issues and that it has failed to control domestic protests against Japan over the comfort women issue by groups such as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, making a “settlement” increasingly difficult.
In 1998, South Korean President
Kim Dae Jung “accepted with sincerity” and “expressed his appreciation” for Japanese Prime Minister
Keizo Obuchi’s expression of “deep remorse and heartfelt apology” for Japan causing tremendous damage and suffering to the Korean people through its colonial rule. Kim also vowed to build “a future-oriented relationship based on reconciliation.”
Kim’s expression of appreciation followed the issuance of the 1993 Kono statement and the provision of money to former Korean comfort women as a form of atonement through the Asian Women’s Fund, a pool of private donations set up at the Japanese government’s initiative in 1995 and which ran through 2007.
However, Roh Moo Hyun, who succeeded Kim as president, demanded an apology and remorse from Japan and referred to the necessity of compensation.
After the Constitutional Court of Korea ruled in August 2011 that the South Korean government’s failure to negotiate with Japan on the comfort women issue was unconstitutional, President
Lee Myung Bak demanded that Japan show sincerity on matter.
Since taking office in February 2013, Park had rebuffed Abe’s calls for talks, saying Japan must first take steps to address the comfort women issue.
In 2007, there were more than 120 former comfort women still alive in South Korea, but the number has since dropped to 47, with their average age standing at nearly 90, according to Yonhap News Agency.
After meeting with Park on Monday, Abe said, “I believe we must not leave obstacles to future generations as we try to build a future-oriented cooperative relationship,” indicating he proposed that he and Park end the dispute once and for all.
A close aide to Abe said that while Japan maintains the position that the issue was settled legally, the two governments are discussing it from a humanitarian perspective, a sign that the prime minister may have raised the possibility of boosting humanitarian assistance to former Korean comfort women.
On Oct. 21,
Takeo Kawamura, a former Japanese chief Cabinet secretary, told reporters that Abe may be considering expanding a government-run follow-up program to the now-defunct Asian Women’s Fund.
The Foreign Ministry allocated 15 million yen ($124,000) for the program in the fiscal 2015 budget, in which periodic visits are made to recipients’ homes with provision of medical and other welfare assistance.
South Korean scholars predict that despite Monday’s agreement with Abe, Park will not change her stance toward Japan on history issues ahead of a general election in the spring and given the public’s perception that her father, the late President
Park Chung Hee, signed an unfair treaty when he normalized ties with Japan in 1965.
“Her uncompromising attitude is not a mystery and can be understood in the context of her father’s legacy,” said
Lee Seong Hyon, an assistant professor of East Asian affairs at Kyushu University in Japan.
“For South Korea’s economy, the senior Park thought it was necessary, but he was domestically criticized for signing an unfair treaty and many Koreans felt humiliated,” Lee said.
“The last thing
Park Geun Hye will do is to taint her father’s legacy by appearing to be soft with Japan,” he said. “This aspect of why
Park Geun Hye is so tough with Japan has not been well examined by the Japanese media.”
==Kyodo
Category: Daily Witness, National
