Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye agreed in their first one-on-one summit on November 2 in Seoul to strive toward an early resolution.
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Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye yesterday agreed to try harder to settle the issue through dialogue, according to Park’s office. However, he said, Ms. Parks call upon all parties to face up to history suggested that Seouls quarrels with Tokyo over World War II, including the issues of Korean comfort women and Japans colonial past, remain deeply entrenched.
“Japan, China and South Korea are neighbors, and because we are neighbors, there are hard issues among us”, Abe said at a news conference with Park and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
After the summit meeting, Abe went to a Korean restaurant and enjoyed lunch with Japanese officials, including Japan’s ambassador to South Korea.
Japan maintains that the comfort women issue was settled in a 1965 normalization agreement, which saw Tokyo make a total payment of $800 million in grants or loans to its former colony.
The Korea Times reported Defense Secretary Ashton Carter as stopping in Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart – the first leg in an eight-day tour of the region – Monday.
Negotiators for the 16 countries, which also include India and the 10 states of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) met in Busan, South Korea, last month to discuss market opening and tariff reductions on goods and services.
In August Park opened the door to reconciliation after Abe promised to uphold apologies made by past Japanese leaders to comfort women and other victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. Japan will host the next summit in 2016.
Analysts say the summit won’t likely produce anything tangible on sensitive history and territorial disputes. The leaders agreed that the summit would be “held on a regular basis in the three countries”, with Japan hosting the next one in 2016.
Abe also appealed to the other two leaders for help on the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea.
China has similarly bitter memories of Japanese wartime aggression and is also at odds with Tokyo over sovereignty of an island chain in the East China Sea.
“By hosting the trilateral summit, Korea won recognition from the worldwide community in that it contributed to ease regional tensions in Northeast Asia”, said Kim Sung-han, a professor in the Graduate School of global Studies at Korea University.
In 2005, North Korea unilaterally declared itself a nuclear power. The declaration included 18 points on “expanding economic and social cooperation for co-prosperity”, 10 on “promoting sustainable development”, and 14 on “enhancing trust and understanding among the peoples”.
Did you know about “comfort women” before these talks between China, Japan and South Korea?
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Concerns from Washington that South Korea was leaning too much toward China were eased somewhat after Park emphasized the importance of the nation’s security alliance with the United States.
