Seoul, Tokyo to hold talks on wartime sex slavery

South Korea and Japan will hold talks to discuss the thorny issue of Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II in Seoul next week, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sunday.

According to the ministry, Lee Sang-deok, director-general for Northeast Asian affairs at the foreign ministry, and Junichi Ihara, director general for Asian and Oceanian affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, will head the talks slated for Wednesday in which the two sides will exchange views to resolve the long-standing problem that continues to overshadow bilateral relations between the neighboring nations.

Sources say the two sides agreed to only touch on the so-called “comfort women” issue during the meeting.

Those who have been forcibly mobilized to serve as sex slaves for Japanese imperial soldiers during World War II are euphemistically called “comfort women”.

The talks will mark the first official attempt by the two neighboring countries to tackle the issue but the prospects are not bright, given the stark differences in their positions regarding the sensitive matter.

Seoul has repeatedly called on Japan to offer a sincere apology along with individual compensation for the victims.

But Japan has rebuffed the call, arguing that all liabilities stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula were settled through the 1965 normalization treaty under which Seoul received $800 million in grants and loans.

Some analysts say the upcoming meeting is merely a show ahead of the U.S. President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Asia, including South Korea and Japan, in late April.

The U.S., an ally of both Korea and Japan, has recently voiced strongly that the two sides should end disputes over history.

Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, were coerced into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers during the war.

Only 55 victims remain alive as of today. By Chung Min-uck The korea times