hankyoreh

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (front

While tension was in the air during the meetings between the foreign ministers of South Korea and China and the foreign ministers of China and Japan, the meeting between the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan was marked by a congenial mood.

With the Japanese cabinet approving a 1 billion-yen (US$9.9 million) payment to South Korea on Aug. 24, Seoul and Tokyo‘s Dec. 28 comfort women agreement is set to move into the implementation phase.

“We talked a lot about working to implement the Dec. 28 agreement and ensuring that the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation will be able to successfully carry out its work. In a number of ways, there was a palpable sense that bilateral trust was strengthening and expanding,” said South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se during a conference with South Korean correspondents following his meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on the afternoon of Aug. 24.

During a meeting of the cabinet on the morning of Aug. 24, the Japanese government decided to pay the 1 billion-yen contribution using the emergency fund from this year’s budget.

The Japanese government agreed to contribute this sum to the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation that was established by the South Korean government to implement the Dec. 28 agreement.

“Once the payment of the sum is completed, the Japanese government will have carried out all of its obligations,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, a spokesperson for the Japanese government, during a regular press briefing on Aug. 24.

When Japanese reporters asked about whether the comfort woman statue would be relocated from in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Suga said, “We will ask South Korea to make an effort and to faithfully implement its agreement with us.”

Suga‘s remarks imply that the comfort women issue will be finally and irreversibly settled once the 1 billion yen has been paid and that Japan intends to put strong pressure on South Korea to relocate the comfort women statue.

In regard to how the 1 billion yen will be used, the South Korean government prefers making a one-time payment directly to the victims side, while the Japanese government wants to limit the money to “funding projects to cover the cost of medical care and nursing,” Kishida said.

“Before long, the government will be able to explain the results of our deliberations with Japan,” said a senior official from South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, who avoided specific comments after the meeting.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter and Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]