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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (fifth from the left) and South Korean President Park Geun-hye hold their first summit in 3.5 years

On Nov. 2, President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed diplomats from both countries to accelerate negotiations to resolve the issue of the so-called comfort women as soon as possible. By emphasizing the fact that this year marks the 50th anniversary of Japan and South Korea normalizing diplomatic relations, the two leaders hinted that progress could be reached on the comfort women issue by the end of the year.

But with reports indicating that no agreement was reached on guidelines for deliberation between leaders, let alone concrete steps for resolving the issue, it remains unclear whether the two countries will be able to reach a meaningful agreement. Given the ambiguity of the methods and approaches for resolving the issue of the comfort women, the two leaders appear to have only achieved a tenuous rapprochement.

During a bilateral summit held at the Blue House on Monday morning - the first such summit in three years and six months - Park and Abe “agreed to keep working to build a more forward-looking and reciprocal cooperative relationship in the future by dealing with the main pending issues that are obstructing efforts to improve bilateral relations,” said Kim Kyou-hyun, Blue House senior secretary for foreign policy and security.

Park emphasized that “the comfort woman issue is becoming a stumbling block for improving bilateral relations and that it must be resolved swiftly in a way that will be both acceptable to the surviving comfort women and satisfactory to the Korean public,” Kim told reporters.

“While Japan‘s basic position is that it was resolved by the agreement between Japan and South Korea in 1965 that dealt with claims for compensation, we agreed to continue talks, realizing that it will be very difficult to completely satisfy the people of both countries. We agreed to speed up negotiations that can lead to common ground, in the knowledge that this issue is becoming an obstacle to developing bilateral relations,” Abe said during an appearance on Japanese TV station BS Fuji on Monday evening.

When asked about specific solutions, Abe said, “Since nothing has been decided yet, we need to narrow down our options in the future.” In regard to timing, he explained that the two sides had “agreed to hold negotiations as soon as possible, just as I said.”

It is thought that Abe, leery of being locked into a specific timeframe, accepted the compromise phrasing of “accelerating negotiations” when Park pressed him to quickly resolve the comfort women issue.

In regard to the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons, the two leaders assessed bilateral cooperation between South Korea and Japan and trilateral cooperation between the two countries and the US and agreed to continue working together to respond to the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons on a multilateral level as well.

In addition, the Japanese government agreed to discuss ways it could cooperate if South Korea decides to take part in the US- and Japan-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the Blue House reported. An agreement was reached in negotiations about the TPP last month.

“This was the first summit that South Korea and Japan have held since President Park and Prime Minister Abe took office, and it took place in a year that is significant as the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese control. The summit was significant in that the two leaders looked for solutions to pending issues related to past disagreements between the two countries and sought progress in bilateral relations,” Kim said.

“No progress was made on the issue of the Japanese comfort women. The way to resolve the problem is for the Japanese government to acknowledge that it is legally responsible and to act accordingly,” the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan said in a statement.

“We urge the South Korean government to clearly state how the problem should be resolved, and we urge the Japanese government to accept this. This problem needs to be not only addressed quickly but also resolved properly,” the council said.

By Choi Hye-jung and Park Su-ji, staff reporters, and Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

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