S. Korea, Japan reach landmark agreement on WWII sex slaves

Japan has officially apologized to South Korean women who were forced to work as sex slaves during World War II. Video provided by Newsy Newslook

TOKYO — Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement Monday to end a long-running dispute over Korean women used as sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II. The issue disrupted relations between the two key U.S. allies for decades and hindered U.S. diplomatic and security goals in the region.

Under the agreement, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will issue a formal apology to women — known as "comfort women" — who were recruited or coerced into providing sex for Japanese soldiers. Tokyo will also provide about 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) to a compensation fund that will support the remaining victims.

Tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. In South Korea, there are 46 surviving former sex slaves, most in their late 80s or early 90s, the Associated Press reported.

“The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women, and the government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective,” Japan Foreign Minister Funio Kishida said Monday after a meeting in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart. Kishida said the deal marks “the beginning of a new era of Japan-South Korea ties.”

South Korea Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se said the agreement resolves the issue “finally and irreversibly.”

It is the first time the Japanese government has provided direct compensation to former comfort women or explicitly recognized responsibility for the program that brought tens of thousands of women from South Korea, China and elsewhere in Asia into sexual servitude. The issue has been the biggest source of friction in ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

Later Monday, Abe called South Korean President Park Geun Hye and reiterated his apology. Abe told reporters after the call that the agreement was based on his commitment to stop future generations from having to repeatedly apologize, the AP reported.

Park said she hoped the two countries will build mutual trust and open a new era in ties based on the agreement. the AP said. “I hope the mental pains of the elderly comfort women will be eased,” Park said in a statement.

The agreement, which comes during the 50th anniversary year of the normalization of relations between the two countries, calls for the two governments to refrain from criticizing each other over the topic. South Korea also pledged to remove a statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul memorializing comfort women. The statue has been an irritation and embarrassment for Tokyo.

Japan and South Korea are the U.S.'s closest allies in the region. About 25,000 U.S. troops are based in South Korea, and about twice that many are based in Japan.

But relations have long been contentious, largely because of issues related to the war and Japan’s brutal 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

The U.S. welcomed the announcement, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying the agreement will "improve relations between two of the United States’ most important allies.”

President Obama has urged both countries to resolve their differences and work together to confront an increasingly assertive China and an erratic, nuclear-armed North Korea.

“This (deal) is very good for the United States because it eliminates an obstacle and therefore it allows two important allies to work together,” said Brad Glosserman, executive director of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based foreign policy research institute.

South Korea has long insisted that Japan's government apologize and pay compensation to the comfort women, while previous administrations in Japan argued that the issue was settled by a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic ties between the two countries. Seoul has questioned the sincerity of previous attempts to redress the issue.