Korea, Japan hold director-general talks on sex slavery

South Korea and Japan held director-general-level talks over the implementation of last year's landmark agreement to settle the thorny issue of the latter's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

The meeting was held in Seoul, led by Chung Byung-won, director-general of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's Northeast Asian Affairs Bureau, and Kimihiro Ishikane, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

"In this round of consultations, the two sides exchanged views on follow-up measures to the bilateral agreement such as the establishment of a foundation (to support the surviving victims) and issues of mutual concern," the ministry said in a press release.

Ishikane came to Seoul to accompany Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki who attended a trilateral meeting here on Thursday with South Korean First Vice Minister Lim Sung-nam and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken to discuss cooperation in strengthening pressure on North Korea to renounce its nuclear ambitions.

Under the bilateral agreement, Tokyo expressed its apology and contrition for its colonial-era atrocities, and agreed to provide 1 billion yen (US$9.1 million) for a foundation to be established by Seoul to support the surviving victims, euphemistically called "comfort women."

But there has been little progress in the implementation of the deal, as some of the victims and their supporters refuse to accept it. They have lambasted it as "diplomatic collusion," arguing that the deal was pushed forward without sufficient consultation with them.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops during the war. Only 44 South Korean victims, mostly in their late 80s, are currently known to be alive. (Yonhap)

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