Overturning Official Agreement on Comfort Woman

It will certainly exacerbate the bilateral relationship between Japan and South Korea. A verification team for the negotiation process of the agreement between Japan-South Korea on settling comfort woman issue, directly affiliated to South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyong-wha, released its result of their investigation, which concluded that the agreement had been disproportionate. The team also revealed secret deal between both governments, causing broad frustration among South Korean citizens. Government of Japan accused Republic of Korea of its unilateral announcement of the hidden deal.

The agreement was established between both former Ministers for Foreign Affairs, Fumio Kishida of Japan and Yung Byung-se in Park Geun-hye administration of South Korea, in December 2015. It reconfirmed final and irreversible settlement of comfort woman issue. Kishida recognized responsibility of Japanese government and offered ¥1 billion to a public foundation supporting comfort women in South Korea. Yun promised making effort to settle the problem of statue of comfort woman in front of Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Not only South Korean government has failed in removing the statue, new one was built in front of Consulate General in Busan.

The report of verification team found that communication between South Korea government and civil group supporting comfort women had been insufficient. The head of the team refused concluding whether the agreement, which had officially been exchanged in a high diplomatic channel, was binding or not. “Considering the impact on the South Korea-Japan relationship, we will determine our standpoint on the agreement,” said ROK Foreign Minister Kang.

Making matters worse, the team revealed hidden deals between the governments. According to the report, Japan required South Korea to persuade civil groups that had built statue of comfort woman, not to support building statue of comfort woman in third party countries, and not to use expression of “sex slave.” South Korea overwhelmingly accepted the offer.

It is obvious that the revelation has undermined the bilateral diplomacy. “This agreement is an agreement between both leaders and made through appropriate negotiation process. I do not find any problem in the process to the agreement. If they tries to change the agreement, bilateral relationship between Japan and South Korea will be unmanageable and I cannot accept it at all,” said the statement of Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Kono. There is no bridge so far between Japan’s insistence on irreversibility of the agreement and public frustration in South Korea.