SEOUL: Japan said on Wednesday any attempt by South Korea to revise a 2015 deal meant to have resolved a row over “comfort women” forced to work in Japan’s wartime brothels would make relations “unmanageable” after Seoul said the agreement had failed.
The two US allies, which share a bitter history including Japanese colonization, are key to international efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs that it pursues in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha apologized for the controversial deal on Wednesday, as a panel investigating the negotiations leading up to the agreement unveiled its results.
The investigation concluded that the dispute over the comfort women, a Japanese euphemism for the thousands of girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in wartime brothels, could not be “fundamentally resolved” because the victims’ demand for legal compensation had not been met.
South Korea wants Japan to take legal responsibility and provide due compensation.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said the 2015 settlement, which includes a 1 billion yen ($8.8 million) fund to help the victims, resulted from “legitimate negotiations,” warning any amendment may complicate relations.
“If (South Korea) tries to revise the agreement that is already being implemented, that would make Japan’s ties with South Korea unmanageable and it would be unacceptable,” Kono said in a statement.
Kang apologized for “giving wounds of the heart to the victims, their families, civil society that support them and all other people because the agreement failed to sufficiently reflect a victim-oriented approach, which is the universal standard in resolving human rights issues.”
Under the deal, endorsed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s predecessor and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan apologized to former comfort women and provided the fund to help them.
They agreed the issue would be “irreversibly resolved” if both fulfilled their obligations.
Tokyo says the matter of compensation for the women was settled under a 1965 treaty. It says that in 2015, it agreed to provide the funds to help them heal “psychological wounds.”
The South Korean government will review the result of the investigation and translate it into policy after consulting victims and civic groups that support them, Kang said.
The comfort women issue has been a regular cause for contention between Japan and neighbors China and North and South Korea since the war. Japan colonized the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945 and occupied parts of China before and after the war.
“(The Moon government) has said it will seek a two-track policy by separately dealing with the comfort women issue and the relationship in the face of North Korea’s threats, but Japan may not agree with that,” Lee Sung-hwan, a professor of Japanese studies in Keimyung University in South Korea, told Reuters.
Japan wants South Korea to remove statues near the Japanese embassy in Seoul and the Japanese consulate in Busan city commemorating Korean comfort women. Seoul says the memorials were erected by civic groups and therefore out of its reach.
According to the investigation, however, the sides struck a separate, secret deal in which South Korea promised to persuade the groups to relocate the statues, provide no support for their overseas statue-raising campaign and refrain from calling the women “sex slaves” on the world stage.
In 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee requested Tokyo to clarify the “comfort women” euphemism, with an independent expert on the panel calling for it to be replaced with “enforced sex slaves.”
“Such an issue of universal value and historical awareness as that of comfort women cannot be resolved through short-term diplomatic negotiations and a political bargain,” said Oh Tai-kyu, a former journalist who led the investigation.
Andrew Horvat, a visiting professor at Josai International University in Japan, said that the pact was flawed from the beginning because it failed to produce real reconciliation.
“The agreement was not reconciliation, but an agreement not to talk about it anymore,” Horvat said.
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Japan says ties at risk if South Korea messes with 2015 ‘comfort women’ deal
Japan says ties at risk if South Korea messes with 2015 ‘comfort women’ deal
Lebanon president accuses Hezbollah of working to ‘collapse’ state
- Joseph Aoun: ‘Whoever launched those missiles wanted to bring about the collapse of the Lebanese state’
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa: ‘We stand alongside Lebanese president Joseph Aoun in disarming Hezbollah’
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday accused Hezbollah of working to “collapse” the state and expressed Beirut’s readiness for “direct negotiations” with Israel, drawing the backing of his Syrian counterpart for his goal of disarming the Iran-backed group.
Lashing out at Hezbollah over its March 2 attack against Israel, which has drawn a devastating Israeli retaliation, Aoun told European officials “Whoever launched those missiles wanted to bring about the collapse of the Lebanese state, plunging it into aggression and chaos... all for the sake of the Iranian regime’s calculations.”
To stop the war, the Lebanese president proposed a four-point initiative and called on the international community to help implement it.
The plan included “establishing a full truce” with Israel, “logistical support” for the army to disarm Hezbollah, and “direct negotiations (with Israel) under international auspices.”
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa endorsed his Lebanese counterpart on Monday saying, “We stand alongside Lebanese president Joseph Aoun in disarming Hezbollah.”
The statements came as the war between Israel and Hezbollah pushed into a second week, with Israel carrying out heavy strikes on a financial firm linked to the group.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.
Lebanese authorities said on Monday that Israel’s attacks since March 2 have killed at least 486 people and wounded at least 1,313.
AFP has not been able to carry out a detailed breakdown of the figures.
According to the government, more than 660,000 people have registered as displaced, with 120,000 sleeping at official shelters as of Monday.
Evacuation warnings
Israel said it killed the head of Hezbollah’s Nasr unit operating in part of southern Lebanon, Abu Hussein Ragheb, on Monday.
Earlier, the Israeli military struck branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a US-sanctioned financial firm, after issuing evacuation warnings, according to Lebanese state media and AFP correspondents.
The Israeli army said it was “striking Hezbollah infrastructure” in the southern suburbs.
An AFP photographer in the area witnessed a massive explosion, while an armed Hezbollah member fired warning shots into the air to encourage residents to evacuate from their homes.
The Israeli army renewed previous orders for people in the area to leave.
Al-Qard Al-Hassan is a lifeline for mainly Shia Muslim communities battling a years-long financial crisis in Lebanon that has locked people out of their bank deposits.
It says it has more than 30 branches nationwide, mainly in Hezbollah bastions such as Beirut’s southern suburbs, but also in central Beirut and other major cities.
In Lebanon’s southern city of Sidon, an area outside of Hezbollah’s traditional sphere of influence, an AFP correspondent saw ambulances and civil defense vehicles gather around a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
Israel also bombed the firm’s branches during its last war with Hezbollah in 2024, including the one in Sidon.
Israeli tank fire killed a priest in the Christian southern Lebanese town of Al-Qlayaa, according to state media and a medical source.
‘Path of allegiance’
Hezbollah on Monday celebrated the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader.
“We renew our pledge of loyalty to this blessed approach and our steadfastness on the path of allegiance,” the group said in a statement.
It also claimed responsibility for at least 10 previous attacks against Israel and its forces, including against troops advancing into Lebanese border towns, as well as a missile salvo on an air base in Haifa.
It said it targeted the Israeli Home Front Command base in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, with “advanced missiles.”
Earlier Monday, it also said it had fought Israeli troops who landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter, the second such incident since the latest war began.
Israeli strikes on sites belonging to the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee in the Tyre and Jwaya areas in south Lebanon killed two paramedics and wounded six, the health ministry said, accusing Israel of “systematic targeting of rescue teams.”
Despite the bombing in Beirut, Lebanon’s parliament met on Monday and postponed legislative elections by two years due to the conflict.
The polls had been scheduled to take place in May.
Lashing out at Hezbollah over its March 2 attack against Israel, which has drawn a devastating Israeli retaliation, Aoun told European officials “Whoever launched those missiles wanted to bring about the collapse of the Lebanese state, plunging it into aggression and chaos... all for the sake of the Iranian regime’s calculations.”
To stop the war, the Lebanese president proposed a four-point initiative and called on the international community to help implement it.
The plan included “establishing a full truce” with Israel, “logistical support” for the army to disarm Hezbollah, and “direct negotiations (with Israel) under international auspices.”
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa endorsed his Lebanese counterpart on Monday saying, “We stand alongside Lebanese president Joseph Aoun in disarming Hezbollah.”
The statements came as the war between Israel and Hezbollah pushed into a second week, with Israel carrying out heavy strikes on a financial firm linked to the group.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.
Lebanese authorities said on Monday that Israel’s attacks since March 2 have killed at least 486 people and wounded at least 1,313.
AFP has not been able to carry out a detailed breakdown of the figures.
According to the government, more than 660,000 people have registered as displaced, with 120,000 sleeping at official shelters as of Monday.
Evacuation warnings
Israel said it killed the head of Hezbollah’s Nasr unit operating in part of southern Lebanon, Abu Hussein Ragheb, on Monday.
Earlier, the Israeli military struck branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a US-sanctioned financial firm, after issuing evacuation warnings, according to Lebanese state media and AFP correspondents.
The Israeli army said it was “striking Hezbollah infrastructure” in the southern suburbs.
An AFP photographer in the area witnessed a massive explosion, while an armed Hezbollah member fired warning shots into the air to encourage residents to evacuate from their homes.
The Israeli army renewed previous orders for people in the area to leave.
Al-Qard Al-Hassan is a lifeline for mainly Shia Muslim communities battling a years-long financial crisis in Lebanon that has locked people out of their bank deposits.
It says it has more than 30 branches nationwide, mainly in Hezbollah bastions such as Beirut’s southern suburbs, but also in central Beirut and other major cities.
In Lebanon’s southern city of Sidon, an area outside of Hezbollah’s traditional sphere of influence, an AFP correspondent saw ambulances and civil defense vehicles gather around a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
Israel also bombed the firm’s branches during its last war with Hezbollah in 2024, including the one in Sidon.
Israeli tank fire killed a priest in the Christian southern Lebanese town of Al-Qlayaa, according to state media and a medical source.
‘Path of allegiance’
Hezbollah on Monday celebrated the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader.
“We renew our pledge of loyalty to this blessed approach and our steadfastness on the path of allegiance,” the group said in a statement.
It also claimed responsibility for at least 10 previous attacks against Israel and its forces, including against troops advancing into Lebanese border towns, as well as a missile salvo on an air base in Haifa.
It said it targeted the Israeli Home Front Command base in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, with “advanced missiles.”
Earlier Monday, it also said it had fought Israeli troops who landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter, the second such incident since the latest war began.
Israeli strikes on sites belonging to the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee in the Tyre and Jwaya areas in south Lebanon killed two paramedics and wounded six, the health ministry said, accusing Israel of “systematic targeting of rescue teams.”
Despite the bombing in Beirut, Lebanon’s parliament met on Monday and postponed legislative elections by two years due to the conflict.
The polls had been scheduled to take place in May.
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