Abe might skip Pyeongchang Games opener over Seoul’s ‘comfort women’ deal reversal: source

Abe might skip Pyeongchang Games opener over Seoul’s ‘comfort women’ deal reversal: source

KYODO

DEC 29, 2017

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may not attend the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February given South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s stance on a bilateral deal over Korean women forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels, a Japanese government source said Thursday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe/todayworld.pro

edited by kcontents

The remark signals growing disappointment within the Japanese government at the Moon administration, which has invited Abe to the Olympics opening ceremony on Feb. 9.

Abe is expected to decide whether to attend the ceremony after confirming the content of Seoul’s new policy on the thorny issue, expected to be announced in early January, government officials said.

After a South Korean government task force found flaws in the domestic process that led to the December 2015 agreement, Moon said the deal is unable to resolve the “comfort women” issue.

When the agreement was reached under Moon’s impeached predecessor, Park Geun-hye, both sides agreed it would “finally and irreversibly” resolve the matter.

The Foreign Ministry told the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo on Thursday of Japan’s concerns about Moon’s statement and made clear that there is “no other policy option” but to maintain the deal.

In the report released Wednesday, a South Korean task force said it found the opinions of former comfort women were not “sufficiently reflected” in the negotiation process.

NBC San Diego

edited by kcontents

A Japanese government source said Tokyo’s “position of seeking the steady implementation of the agreement is unchanging,” suggesting it will not agree to any further demands Seoul makes in the wake of the report.

“If we get to the point where the South Korean government demands a rethink of the agreement, we’ll be (in a situation) where countries can’t keep their promises to one another,” a senior Japanese official said.

Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Wednesday that Japan sees “no problem in the process” that led to the agreement and warned that bilateral relations will “become unmanageable” if South Korea seeks to review it.

But bilateral coordination remains essential in dealing with the security threat from North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

“It’s important for both sides to make efforts to build a friendly relationship as neighbors,” another Japanese government source said.

A source close to the South Korean task force said the report was not intended to prompt the scrapping or renegotiation of the deal.

“By no means is this a review designed to worsen Japan-South Korea relations,” the source said. “For the most part, the problems are domestic issues that have nothing to do with Japan.”

Tadashi Kimiya, a professor of Korean studies at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said both countries “have no choice other than to manage the comfort women issue carefully as they continue with negotiations, so that the flames don’t spread to all other aspects of Japan-South Korea relations.”

But the task force’s decision to include hitherto unpublished parts of the negotiations in its report has caused discomfort in Tokyo.

“If South Korea can’t keep diplomatic secrets, there could be an impact on the sharing of information (between South Korea and Japan) on security issues like North Korea’s nuclear and missile (development),” Kimiya said.

The agreement saw Japan put ¥1 billion ($8.8 million) into a South Korean foundation to support the women, while South Korea agreed to “make efforts” to remove a commemorative statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul that remains standing today.

After a meeting with Abe at his office in Tokyo, Takeo Kawamura, the secretary general of the cross-party Japan-South Korea parliamentarians’ league, told reporters that Moon “surely understands what will happen to Japan-South Korea relations if he breaks the agreement.”

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/29/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-might-skip-pyeongchang-games-opener-seouls-comfort-women-deal-reversal-source/#.WkW1QdJl_IU

kcontents

.