South Korean and Japan still not able to cooperate due to historical issues
By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter The Japanese ambassador to South Korea said that a statue of a young girl erected in front of the embassy in Seoul to commemorate comfort women drafting into service as sex slaves to the Japanese military was “not helping to solve problems in Japanese-South Korean relations.”Ambassador Koro Bessho made his comments while speaking at an Apr. 16 debate organized by the Kwanhoon Club at the Seoul Press Center.“Every day I go to work at the embassy and I see that statue,” he said. “I don’t think it was the right decision to put it there.”The statue was put up in December 2011 under the leadership of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (KCWDMSS). The date marked the 1,000th of the weekly “Wednesday demonstrations” held in front of the embassy by comfort women survivors since January 1992.The Japanese government has repeatedly asked the South Korean government to have the statue taken down. An incident occurred in June 2012 when a Japanese rightwing activist tied a stake to the statue with a message claiming the South Korean Dokdo Islets as Japanese territory. Bessho also spoke about the recent North Korean missile threat, saying that Japan and South Korea were “weak in defense exchanges and security cooperation.” He also said Tokyo was prepared to sign a military intelligence sharing agreement that has been on ice since a controversy erupted last year over its behind-the-scenes handling.Regarding this issue, Shigeru Ishiba, Secretary General of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said at an Apr. 10 lecture in Tokyo that it was “problematic that the US is the only country that Japan can support if an emergency comes up on the Korean Peninsula.”With his comment, Ishiba was indicating that the Law Concerning Measures to Ensure the Peace and Security of Japan in Situations in Areas Surrounding Japan should be extended to make South Korea and Australia as well as the US eligible to receive support from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in the event of an emergency.Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
