Seoul is walking away from a key part of the 2015 agreement with Tokyo, tossing the comfort women issue back into the spotlight.
The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, established in 2016 to support the victims of Japanese wartime sex slavery, often referred to as “comfort women,” will be dismantled after just two years. The foundation took center-stage in a major controversy that has left Korea and Japan divided more than ever in recent years following an agreement signed in 2015.
South Korea sent an official notification to Japan on the dismantlement of the foundation, the process of which is expected to take somewhere between six months and a year. Experts argue that Korea and Japan will engage in constant exchanges during this period as they collide over the matter of preserving or dismantling the foundation as well as the agreement itself.
Japan raised immediate concern following the South Korean decision. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party adopted a resolution criticizing the move, asking the Japanese government to call on Korea to retract its decision. The resolution was submitted directly to Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.
“We criticize South Korea’s constant act of violating international vows with utmost outrage,” the resolution said.
The foundation was a result of an agreement that was signed between the two countries in December 2015 under the Park Geun-hye administration in South Korea. The accord stipulated the intention of both states to “establish a foundation whose purpose is to support former sex slaves,” and to “dispense all funds necessary from Japan’s government budget to restore honor and dignity of the victims.
