Japan proposes setting up fund for S Korean ‘comfort women’

Local media has said Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida will visit South Korea on Monday to discuss with his counterpart Yun Byung-se the issue of Korean girls and women who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels. Nikkei Asian Review  said one proposal “would have 10 years’ worth of fund, which is a little over 100 million yen ($831,877). 

Tokyo wants assurances that any resolution to the feud over ‘comfort women’ that might be reached will be final, Japanese government sources have said. Japan says the issue of compensation for the women was legally settled by a 1965 treaty and that it stands by a 1993 government apology. South Korea has said this was not enough, and wants an apology as well as compensation for victims. 

Nikkei has also said hinted that some Japanese government officials support a proposal that Japanese Prime Minister Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe write personally to the ‘comfort women’ as acknowledgement of Japan’s war crimes against those women. 

South Korea’s ties with Japan have long been strained by what Seoul sees as Japanese leaders’ reluctance to atone for the country’s brutal wartime past. However, ties have warmed since Abe met South Korean President Park Geun-hye last month.