Seoul will dissolve Japan-funded sexual slavery foundation

South Korea said on Wednesday it will dissolve a foundation funded by Japan to compensate South Korean women who were forced to work in Japan’s World War II military brothels.

The widely expected decision effectively kills a controversial 2015 agreement to settle a decades-long impasse over the sexual slavery issue and threatens to aggravate a bitter diplomatic feud between the Asian US allies over history. Seoul’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said in a statement that it will take legal steps to dissolve the foundation.

Lee Nam-hoon, an official from the gender equality ministry, said Seoul’s Foreign Ministry plans to con- sult with Tokyo on what to do with the 1 billion yen ($8.8 million) Japan funded to the foundation that was formally launched in July 2016.

“After considering diverse opinions over the ‘Reconciliation and Healing Foundation’ based on victim-centric principles, we have decided to push for the dissolution of the foundation,” Gender Equality Minister Jin Sun Mee said in a statement.

She said the ministry will continue to push policies to “restore the honour and dignity” of the sexual slavery victims.

Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.

Liberal South Korean President Moon Jaein, who has been a harsh critic of the 2015 deal reached under his conservative predecessor, told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a meeting in September that the foundation was failing to function properly because of strong opposition by the victims and public.

South Korea and Japan are already at odds over a ruling by Seoul’s apex court last month that a major Japanese steelmaker should compensate four South Koreans for forced labour during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of WWII.