S. Korea, Japan to hold talks on wartime sex slaves

September 17, 2015
Kang Il-chul, a South Korean victim of Japan's wartime sex slavery, looks at a "comfort women" monument at the Veterans Memorial at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County, New York, on Aug. 6, 2015. The monument was jointly dedicated by Nassau County, the South Korean city of Gwangju and the Korean American Public Affairs Committee. Kang urged the Japanese government to apologize to victims of its sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women for its troops during World War II. (Yonhap)

Kang Il-chul, a South Korean victim of Japan’s wartime sex slavery, looks at a “comfort women” monument at the Veterans Memorial at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County, New York, on Aug. 6, 2015. The monument was jointly dedicated by Nassau County, the South Korean city of Gwangju and the Korean American Public Affairs Committee. Kang urged the Japanese government to apologize to victims of its sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women for its troops during World War II. (Yonhap)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — South Korea and Japan will hold talks this week on Tokyo’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Thursday.

The “comfort women” issue is a major source of history disputes between the neighboring countries. Japan is notorious for its brutal colonization of Korea from 1910-45.

In the director general-level consultations to be held in Tokyo on Friday, the two sides are expected to discuss the level of Japan’s apology and compensation for the victims.

It would be the 9th round of formal talks on the matter.

South Korea will be represented by Lee Sang-deok, director-general of the ministry’s Northeast Asian affairs bureau. His counterpart will be Junichi Ihara, director-general of Asian and Oceanian Affairs bureau at Japan’s foreign ministry.

More than 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese troops, according to some historians.

In an interview with the Washington Post in June, President Park Geun-hye relevant negotiations were “in the final stage.” She did not elaborate.

One Comment

  1. kle

    September 18, 2015 at 9:55 AM

    Child Female Abduction is more proper term, than “sexual slave” which is term used by criminals or those who commit crime or sponsor of terror.