Japan Protests S. Korea New Policy on Comfort Women Deal

Tokyo, Jan. 9 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government lodged a protest after the South Korean government announced a new policy on Tuesday on the 2015 bilateral agreement to resolve the issue of so-called former comfort women. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Tokyo will continue to urge Seoul to "steadily implement" the agreement, in which the two countries confirmed that the issue was resolved "finally and irreversibly." Comfort women refers to those who were forced into prostitution for Japanese troops chiefly during World War II. "The Japan-South Korea agreement is a promise between the two countries," Kono told reporters. "It's an international and universal principle that such an accord should be implemented responsibly even after a change of government," he stressed. "We can't accept any request at all from South Korea for Japan to take further measures," the minister also said. The Japanese government later filed a protest through diplomatic channels in Tokyo and Seoul. In the new policy announced by Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, South Korea stopped short of asking Japan to renegotiate the deal reached in December 2015. Referring to this, a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said it was not surprising that Seoul did not seek renegotiation. A senior official of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that "we will not move the agreement even a millimeter." Also in the new policy, Seoul said it will make an allocation in its state budget to cover one billion yen contributed by Tokyo to a South Korean foundation established to provide cash payments to surviving former comfort women in South Korea. Another official of the Japanese ministry said, "That doesn't make sense to us." The Japanese government also plans to ask the South Korean side to explain its request for making efforts for restoring the honor and dignity of those women. END