Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday agreed to continue watching the South Korean government\u2019s response to Tokyo\u2019s concerns over a recently installed \u201ccomfort women\u201d statue before sending recalled ambassador Yasumasa Nagamine back to Seoul.
Last week the government temporarily recalled the ambassador in protest against the statue\u2019s installation by a South Korean civic group in front of the Japanese consulate-general in the southern South Korean city of Busan late last month.
Yasuhiro Morimoto, the Japanese Consulate General in Busan, was also called back the same day.
The statue, regarded as a symbol of the Korean women who were forced to work at Japanese military brothels before and during World War II, is the second of its kind set up in front of a Japanese diplomatic facility in South Korea, after one was erected in 2011 in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
It is understood the Foreign Ministry believes that the ambassador should be quickly sent back to South Korea and engaged in negotiations with Seoul on the controversial statue. Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has offered a similar view.
However it is understood many in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office oppose his return before South Korea takes a positive response on the matter.
\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to urge the South Korean side at every occasion to steadily implement the (December 2015) Japan-South Korea agreement, including the issue of comfort women statues,\u201d Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference Thursday.
In 2012, then-Japanese Ambassador Masatoshi Muto was recalled following then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak\u2019s visit to the Takeshima islets in the Sea of Japan, which are controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.
Muto returned to Seoul after staying in Japan for 12 days. The current ambassador is unlikely to go back to work in the South Korean capital any earlier.
No prospects are in sight for the removal of the Busan statue as South Korea is mired in political confusion, with its scandal-tainted president, Park Geun-hye, suspended from office.
Also, there are calls, mainly from South Korean opposition lawmakers, for a review of the December 2015 agreement to resolve the two countries\u2019 dispute over comfort women.
Under the agreement, South Korea vowed to make efforts to resolve the issue of the Seoul statue after Japan called for its removal. The statue has not been removed.<\/p>\n