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© KYODOJapan complains over S Korea's 'comfort women' ruling
BUSAN, South Korea©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
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BigP
Again! Again! Again!
Enough already!
OssanAmerica
If so, the SK Court Ruling contradicts the SK government's official position. Former Pres Moon literally destroyed South Korean diplomatic credibility by tearing up the 2015 Agreement. In fact it's a miracle that Japan, with US pressure to work with Pres Yoon, has proceeded to restore relations. There are obviously some elements in South Korea who would prefer that SK side with North Korea and China.
ushosh123
Sounds like a nothing burger. Japan isn't liable for anything.
OssanAmerica
Japan has already apologized, paid and atoned countless times.
The only country sweeping history under the rug is South Korea, in denial of it's role during WWII, from serving in the IJA and abusing Allied POWs to recruiting women and even running some Comfort Stations. 21,181 Koreans are enshrined at Yasukuni. 148 Koreans were convicted as Class B and C War Criminals, and one as Class A and executed.
Hans
It is hypocritical of South Korea to demand money when they were the ones who cancelled the foundation started by Japan.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Mileage in the press maybe but most demands for reparations are met with smiles and ignored.
1glenn
This is not a matter that I have followed closely, but haven't the Comfort Women been compensated through the courts several times already? How many times can this issue be adjudicated?
owzer
Japan should point far away and explain that that is the direction in which Korea should kindly get lost.
Agent_Neo
The story actually ended with the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and Korea in 1965.
If there are prostitutes who want to receive compensation after that, they still have the right to make a claim, so this is a case where the South Korean government, which receives three times the national budget, including North Korea's share, should pay for it.
Since then, Japan has responded sincerely whenever South Korea has complained.
After the comfort women issue surfaced in 1990, Japan established the Asian Women's Fund in 1995 to compensate women in the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea, and even received a letter of apology from the prime minister.
After that, in recent years, former Prime Minister Abe and former President Park Geun-hye decided to establish a comfort women's foundation and donate 1 billion yen from Japan, and an irreversible agreement was finally reached, but Moon Jae-in ruled it out.
South Korea is a country where it is natural for a new president to ignore previous treaties it doesn't like, so there is no need for Japan to do anything more.
This is because the agreement with South Korea would not have been established if it were possible to pretend it never happened because the victims were not satisfied with the agreement made by the state.
In the first place, no matter how much South Korean courts judge the Japanese government, they have no coercive power. It will only become a laughing stock in the international community.
OssanAmerica
They already did countless times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93South_Korea_Comfort_Women_Agreement
oyatoi
Were it even remotely true, his wife of 40 years would definitely have something to say about that.
Bob Kunihiro
You bozos in SK need to get over it, whining all the time over this.
itsonlyrocknroll
The ever present stench of former South Korean President, Moon Jae-In toxic poisonous political legacy.
His abuse of power. In politically weaponizing South Koreas judicial system.
In a fit of belligerence, Moon Jae-In despise and loathing of Japan, his refusal to recognize Japan's people are a nation devoted to peace.
Moon Jae-In final curse was to use frail pensioners, so called comfort women, to kill any remaining hope of closure, the 2015 accord, all to satisfy his own long held prejudices.
kenshin_u
In addition to this case, the Korean government has seized Buddhist statues stolen from Japan by Korean thieves, but Korea has not returned them to Japan. Thus, South Korea is a country that has a flagrant disregard for international treaties. It is only slightly better than China.
OssanAmerica
South Korea is the only 'democratic" nation that exists under complete historical revisionism. Other nations don't come anywhere near it.
Nibek32
Japan should just flat out ignore and stop reporting on this nonsense.
Don’t give Korea a platform to complain and try to renegotiate a deal that Japan already paid out and Korea agreed to decades ago.
Just give them the fax number that goes nowhere.
OssanAmerica
Not nonsense at all. You can look it all up if you actually cared about facts.
Korea was part of Japan prior to and during WWII. As soon as WWII was over SKorea was established under the control of the Korean Government in Exile" whose sole raison d'etre was to fight the Japanese colonizers. So even though Japan was no longer the oppressor, anti-Japan sentiment continued. Which is fine by itself, but has included complete denial of the roles that Korea played during the war, and has sold the false narrative that Korea was one of the Asian nations that Japan invaded. This simply is not so.
Angel Uresti
Sadly, this is not about of the victims, current SK politics are using them "Again" as a platform, and they will continue to do it, even when the last one of them is dead. And Japan politics of course are using them too, because pay and give another apology will be pretty easy, but why do that when you can claim that you're protecting the sovereignty of Japan, get your face in the front page and all of this just in exchange for the dignity of the war victims.
Agent_Neo
@Nguyen Huu Minh
What you said isn't accurate, so I've corrected it.
I hope that the Korean government and Korean people will swallow their pride and apologize to the Korean prostitutes they have used as tools for making money, ask for forgiveness, and prepare to pay compensation to the victims to the extent legally possible. I hope you have it.
By doing so, it will be the first step towards a new relationship between South Korea and Japan.
There are many other cases in which the South Korean government and people must apologize and compensate Japan.
There is no hiding the fact that this "Korean prostitute" did not actually arise when the Empire of Japan annexed Korea.
This is because a self-proclaimed 200,000 people were kidnapped by the Japanese military, but there were no witnesses.
If there are any, please provide the names and surnames of the witnesses and the date of their testimony.
kaimycahl
Look at Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa face the expression says it all.
Agent_Neo
Incidentally, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who married a Chinese man, seems to have apologized many times, but has not paid a single dollar.
Other victorious countries have never apologized to the countries they colonized.
Countries in Africa and the Middle East have suffered at a level that is incomparable to countries such as South Korea, but have they apologized? What about compensation?
I would like you to show me an example.
I think anyone can just apologize, but there's no way Koreans will be satisfied with that, and Japanese people who are forced to impose a false history on them will be even less convinced.
''A people who forget their history has no future.'' This is a favorite phrase of Koreans, but don't you think it describes them well?
oyatoi
Since there was at the time no South Korea, nor any independent Korean entity, thanks to Japan’s erasure of such, the point is moot. Suffice to say Korean soldiers served in the IJA, and not the IKA.
Nguyen Huu Minh
I do wish the Japanese government and its people would swallow their pride and apologize to the people of South Korea, ask for forgiveness, and prepare to pay any compensation to the victims that are legally viable. Only by doing so, a new chapter of relations between South Korea and Japan can begin for the better. You cannot hide the fact that this "comfort women" did occur when imperial Japan occupied Korea.
Since Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia formally apologized to the indigenous people for the past deeds done to them, the issue of "lost children" when the native kids were taken away from their parents to make them "white" is no longer a thorn in the Australian social relation with the native people. A sense of relief and forgiveness from the indigenous people was widespread. A new milestone was laid for the future.
The current Japanese government is not the one responsible for what happened in the past but an apology on behalf of the former imperial government will soothe the sorrow of those victims who are still alive. I believe that the Koreans will forgive if the current Japanese government is sincere enough. There is no suffering that will last forever if a sincere apology is brought forth but a denial will make the suffering worst.
kurisupisu
Japan occupied Korea and abused, murdered and raped.
Becoming a prostitute is not usually a career choice for the normal Korean female is it?
I did not think so…
BertieWooster
Japan has a LOT to atone for. Comfort women (sex slaves) are just the tip of the iceberg. And the past is going to keep coming up as long as they try to sweep it under the rug.
oyatoi
Some can’t get their head around the fact that in South Korea, unlike in a certain other country, there’s such a thing as judicial independence. If only the blighters could do do as they do here; vest their faith in the 1965 Treaty which absolved them of all responsibility for the excesses of their zealous predecessors who, after all, were only bringing sweetness and light unto the world.
smithinjapan
'Japan has said all issues stemming from its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula were settled "completely and finally" under a 1965 bilateral agreement and that the 2015 accord resolved the comfort women issue.'
Well, maybe South Korea should be a little less helpful to Japan on NK issues, you know, especially since "The abduction issue has been resolved completely and finally" according to NK. And when Japan decides to ignore history while suggesting it's been resolved is blatant hypocrisy at best.
The island issue has also been resolved -- they are South Korean, plain and simple. Lived on, administered, and run by SK for decades. And yet, none of those issues are resolved in the eyes of Japan. They want world leaders to come and lay wreaths and acknowledge the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- that's not resolved and dead, is it? They want hibakusha and family to visit other nations and ask leaders to address the war and Japan's victimhood in it. Suddenly not history that should be forgotten and we should move forward without talking about it then, eh?
oyatoi
Regrets, Japan’s had a few, but then again too few to mention.