Korean civic groups and victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery continue to criticize the Seoul-Tokyo “comfort women” settlement, but a Japanese historian says it is unrealistic to expect a better agreement from the ultraconservative Shinzo Abe administration.
According to the scholar, the contentious deal should serve as a starting point for resolving the thorny issue in the long-term.
“I thought Koreans would accept the deal on some level, considering the effort put into it,” Haruki Wada, professor emeritus of Tokyo University whose studies include that of modern Korea, told The Korea Herald in an interview.
“But there has been split reaction from them, even talks of nullifying the agreement. If it comes to that, I don’t think there will be any more momentum within Japan (for another deal).”
Haruki Wada, professor emeritus of Tokyo University, speaks at the Jeju Forum. (Ah Hoon/The Korea Herald)According to Wada, the nullification of last year’s Dec. 28 deal is likely to blur the outlook for any further agreement on the issue.
Comfort women is a term euphemistically used to refer to some 200,000 women from Asian countries who were coerced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II. There are currently 42 surviving comfort women in South Korea.
Wada pointed out that the Japanese leader’s resurfacing to power in 2012 had threatened the civil movement in Japan to address the topic.
“The past 25 years of efforts to resolve this (comfort women) issue seemed to go down the drain with Abe, and his actions sparked further backlash from Korea,” he said.
“I don’t think Abe would have wanted the agreement. He was seen to be ‘running away’ (after the agreement), saying that there was no forcible recruitment of comfort women.”
Last year, the scholar urged Abe to honor the 1993 Kono Statement and 1995 Murayama Statement and display his commitment to Tokyo’s apologies for its wartime atrocities.
Former Japanese leader Tomiichi Murayama himself, who offered the watershed apology, recently urged Abe to offer written apologies to the victims.
Wada said while the agreement has some shortcomings, it nevertheless represented Abe “taking a step back” from his former unyielding stance.
But the December agreement once again evoked the decades-long disputes, especially from the surviving victims themselves.
One of them, Kim Bok-dong, visited the National Assembly on Thursday, urging for the nullification of the agreement and renegotiation.
The surviving comfort women have been protesting against Abe’s lack of direct apology and of admitting legal responsibility. They also demanded for clarity on the suspicion that the two governments may have agreed off paper to relocate a comfort women statue adjacent to the Japanese Embassy here.
The term “final and irreversible,” referring to the nature of the agreement as specified by the two governments, has been another point of dispute.
“The ‘final and irreversible’ clause may make it appear as if Korea can no longer criticize or make demands (on comfort women issue),” Wada said.
“But the fact is that the two countries agreed to deal with this issue on a state level. What can be gained from dismissing it as insignificant altogether?”
By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com) 顶: 5468踩: 5983
评论专区