Japan and South Korea to settle sex slave row

JAPAN and South Korea appear ready to settle a bitter dispute over Japanese wartime sex slaves, which has strained relations between the two countries for more than half a century.

Japan is expected to propose creating a government-backed fund to help the so-called “comfort women” as part of an agreement when the two countries’ foreign ministers meet in Seoul tomorrow.

One proposal was for 100 million yen (£500,000) fund that would pay out 10 years’ worth of aid at once.

South Korea and other Asian countries say the Japanese army forced thousands of women to work in military brothels during the Second World War. The fate of the comfort women is a hugely emotional issue in South Korea and a source of much of the distrust that has marred relations between the two countries for years.

As part of any agreement,

Japan wants South Korea to drop any further financial claims and also remove a statue of a Korean girl, symbolising comfort women, from outside the Japanese embassy in the South Korean capital.

Japan is likely to demand that any settlement be final. The South Korean government may be willing to compromise, local media say.

“In a diplomatic negotiation, there can never be a 100-0 win,” a South Korean government official told a local newspaper. “The goal is keeping the score 51-49, but making each side think it has won 51.”

Japan issued a landmark 1993 statement that expressed “sincere apologies and remorse” to the women “who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women”. But it has long maintained that the dispute was settled in a 1965 normalisation agreement with South Korea, which saw Tokyo make a payment of $800 million (£539 million) in grants or loans to its former colony.

Seoul is demanding a fresh formal apology and compensation for the Korean women who served as sex slaves in Japanese military army brothels.

Before last month’s meeting in Seoul, South Korean president Park Geun-hye had rebuffed all previous bilateral summit proposals, arguing that Tokyo had yet to properly atone for its wartime past and 1910-45 colonial rule.

Relations have recently improved, with the first bilateral meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Mrs Park on Nov 2 in Seoul. But even if the two governments reach agreement, the issue of comfort women is unlikely to disappear.

“It’s never going to ‘end’, in that there will always be a segment of the Korean public that’s not happy regarding of what Japan does and there’ll always be Japanese who’ll make statements that will enrage Koreans,” said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan campus.