South Korea won’t seek to reopen a landmark accord with Japan over wartime sex slavery, shelving for now a potential dispute as the two U. S. allies seek to deal with the North Korean threat.
South Korea won’t seek to reopen a landmark accord with Japan over wartime sex slavery, shelving for now a potential dispute as the two U. S. allies seek to deal with the North Korean threat.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a briefing Tuesday that the country had decided against renegotiating the two-year-old deal, which President Moon Jae-in last month called faulty in “procedure and content.” Instead, South Korea would pay to top up a 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) fund intended to compensate women forced to serve in Japanese military brothels in World War II.
Still, Kang said that the deal — reached by Moon’s predecessor and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December 2015 — couldn’t resolve the dispute. In addition to the fund, Abe issued a historic apology to South Korea’s “comfort women.”
The decision removes a potential friction point between the neighbors at a time when the U.
