Moon warns Japan not to declare comfort women issue over

March 2, 2018

Seoul- South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday that the Japanese government should not say the issue of wartime "comfort women," mainly Koreans, is over, calling Japan the party at fault.

Referring to comfort women, who were forced to serve as prostitutes for Japanese troops before and during World War II, Moon said that such an inhumane criminal act cannot be said to be "done with" by such a declaration.

Moon made the remarks in a speech at a ceremony in Seoul to remember the March 1, 1919, independence movement against Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The remarks appeared to violate a Japan-South Korea agreement reached under Moon's predecessor, Park Geun-hye, in December 2015 to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the comfort women issue, although he did not directly mention the accord in the speech.

During the speech, Moon insisted that a real settlement must involve remembering tragic history and learning from it.

He urged Japan to face the historical truth in good conscience and move ahead with his country, on the basis of true remorse and rapprochement.

On the Sea of Japan islands of Takeshima, at the center of a territorial dispute between the two countries, Moon claimed that Japan forcibly occupied the islands, called Dokdo in South Korea, in the early stages of its invasion of the Korean Peninsula.

He argued that Japan's denial of this view should mean its refusal of remorse for the wartime aggression.

The islands are currently under the effective administration of South Korea.

An adviser to the president on diplomacy told Jiji Press that Moon could further step up his rhetoric against Japan toward the 100th anniversary of the independence movement next year.

Still, the adviser noted that Moon is likely to speak differently in domestic speeches and on diplomatic occasions as he understands that South Korea has no choice but to maintain trilateral cooperation with Japan and the United States in dealing with North Korea. Jiji Press