South Korea Proposes Talks with Japan over ‘Comfort Women’
Government officials of South Korea consider proposing talks with Japan over the issue of South Korean "comfort women" who were subjected to brutality by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, Korea Times reported on Tuesday.
The plan has been proposed late in August after officials deemed it unconstitutional to take no action after Japan refuses to compensate victims who were forced to draft as comfort women.
"We are considering proposing official bilateral talks after the Chuseok holidays," a government official told the media.
"If we do make a proposal, it will be delivered through diplomatic channels such as the Japanese Embassy in Seoul or the Korean Embassy in Japan," the government official added, refusing to elaborate on the specific agenda.
Though the two countries remain as trading partners even after Korea's independence, their relations continue to be scarred by a few issues such as Japan's territorial claim on Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, its attempt to sugarcoat the barbarities of war, and sex slavery.
In 1990, during a session of a Japanese Diet, a government official denied Japan's involvement in the recruitment of comfort women, prompting South Korea to establish the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which demands for admittance to crime and issuance of apology, compensation for all survivors of the bereaved families, and full disclosure of Japan's barbaric acts, among others.
In response, the Japanese government announced in 1991 that there was no evidence that Korean women were forced to draft as comfort women, and maintained the government will not issue admission and apology.