Japan’s revisionist politicians hamper ties with S. Korea: white paper

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also reportedly brought up the statue with South Korean President Park Geun-hye during recent talks aimed at resolving the tensions once and for all.

The eight South Koreans were forced to work at the factories of its predecessor, Nippon Steel Corp, in Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture, and Kitakyushu in Fukuota prefecture.

His remarks on the issue were in response to Ms Park’s written interview with major news organisations, including South Korea’s Yonhap News and Japan’s Kyodo News, earlier yesterday morning. Park is departing South Korea on November 14 to attend the G20 summit, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and ASEAN+3 (South Korea, China, and Japan) and East Asia Summit (EAS).

In what was their first one-on-one meeting last week, Park and Abe vowed to speed up consultations aimed at finally putting the long-running issue to bed.

“Our two countries need to tackle history issues on the basis of a correct understanding of history, thereby creating a turning point for a new journey into the future”, she said.

Asked about the latest call by Park over the issue, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, replied in the statement, “We hope that Japan can properly deal with history-related issues, including the issue of comfort women, by facing up to and deeply reflecting upon its history of aggression”.

“But it will be possible only when the North comes forward for a proactive and honest dialogue”, she added. Tokyo argues the “comfort women” issue has already been resolved through a treaty signed in 1965 that settled all reparations. James Lewis, director of strategic technologies at the Center for Strategic and worldwide Studies in Washington, says Iran and North Korea scaled down their activities for several months while Iran negotiated the nuclear deal with the USA but are back to business as usual.

Still, North Korea has remained silent on South Korea’s repeated offer to have preparatory contact for high-level talks.

It’s a solid concern, considering staying regular in North Korea can be a problem, as a report indicates that most in North Korea eat an unbalanced diet.