By Jun Ji-hye
The issue of Korean comfort women forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II is expected to be a hot issue during Monday’s Seoul-Tokyo summit.
President Park Geun-hye said Friday that the Japanese government should suggest measures to resolve the sex slave issue which would be acceptable to the Korean people. She said the wounded hearts of the victims should be healed on the occasion of the summit.
In response, however, Tokyo said the position of its government has not changed ― its existing stance is that the issue was settled in the 1965 Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty.
The different positions of the two governments, which came just a few days ahead of the first bilateral summit between Park and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, are tarnishing hopes to some extent that the latter will commit to resolving the issue.
During a written interview with Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, President Park said the two countries should use the summit as an opportunity to settle matters related to the sex slave issue as it remains a significant impediment in relations between the two countries.
“The issue is a matter of human rights of women. I hope the Japanese government will suggest proper measures to resolve the issue,” she said. “The Korean government is not a party that blocks the improvement of Seoul-Tokyo relations. We all know that a wrong view of history is causing conflict and antagonism.”
She added that denial cannot resolve past wrongdoings, saying, “I sincerely hope that the past causes no more hurt and controversy.”
When asked about the position of the Japanese government regarding Park’s remark, Koichi Hagiuda, a deputy chief secretary in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said the country’s position has not changed, and the summit should take place without preconditions.
Japan has said the sex slave issue should not be a political or diplomatic matter.
Park, who was sworn in as president in February of 2013, had refused to meet Abe because of Japan’s attempts to deny Japanese soldiers used Korean sex slaves during the war.
But while visiting the U.S. on Oct. 15, she told reporters that a Seoul-Tokyo summit could take place on the sidelines of the Seoul-Tokyo-Beijing trilateral summit, scheduled for Sunday.
Hope for the longstanding pending issue between the two nations to be resolved was raised after former Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told Japanese reporters in Seoul on Oct. 21 that Abe was considering measures to expand the follow-up program for the now-defunct Asian Women’s Fund to resolve the matter.
The Japanese government set up the Asian Women’s fund in 1995 to distribute compensation to comfort women with a follow-up program that includes medical care. The fund was dissolved in 2002
Kawamura said, “The Prime Minister hopes that negotiations on the matter will progress,” adding that Abe may propose expanding the program.
However, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denied this on Oct. 23.
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