Moon apologizes to former comfort women over 2015 deal

January 5, 2018

Seoul- South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday apologized to former comfort women over a 2015 agreement between Tokyo and Seoul to resolve a dispute over them, the Blue House presidential office said.

At a luncheon with eight former comfort women at the Blue House in Seoul, Moon said he offers an apology as president as the agreement that goes against their will was reached without listening to them.

Comfort women, mostly Koreans, were forced to sexually serve Japanese troops before and during World War II.

The agreement designed to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the dispute over Korean comfort women was reached in December 2015 when Moon's predecessor, Park Geun-hye, was in office.

Moon said the agreement not only goes against the principle of truth and justice but also is defective both in its contents and in the procedure that was pushed by the government.

He also said he had made his views clear that the issue of comfort women cannot be resolved with the agreement, while acknowledging that he cannot deny the fact that it is an official agreement between the two countries.

Prior to the meeting, Moon visited Kim Bok-dong, a former comfort woman, in a Seoul hospital.

Moon told Kim that it is true that the former government made the official agreement and that the issue needs to be resolved under the existing relationship between the two countries.

He said there are some difficulties but that his government will do its best even though everything does not go as former comfort women would like.

The eight comfort women who held the luncheon with Moon included Lee Yong-soo, who attended a banquet held in Seoul in November to welcome US President Donald Trump.

Lee was quoted as telling Moon that the Japanese government, which is demanding the removal of girl statues symbolizing the comfort women, should apologize if it is afraid of them.

Among other participants at the luncheon were Yoon Mee-hyang, head of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a civil group supporting former comfort women, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Gender Equality and Family Minister Chung Hyun-back.

On Dec. 27 last year, a South Korean Foreign Ministry task force released a report on its probe into bilateral negotiations that led to the 2015 agreement, saying that the accord does not represent the opinions of the victims.

On Dec. 28, Moon said the comfort women issue cannot be resolved with the agreement. His government is expected to decide what actions to take over the matter as soon as early this month. Jiji Press