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Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se takes a sip of water during a hearing of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Jan. 13. (Yonhap News)

Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se said it was the “general position of the international community” that structures and artwork should not be erected in front of diplomatic offices or consulates.

His remarks came in reference to a comfort woman statue set up on Dec. 30 in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan.

Appearing before the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Jan. 13, Yun said he would “work with the related parties to find a feasible resolution on the Busan statue issue.” His remarks, which amount to a demand that the statue be relocated from in front of the consulate, are expected to have some repercussions.

Yun’s claim represented just one of numerous perspectives on the issue, as there is no precedent for comparing the positioning of a statue in front of a Japanese consent to harming or complicating the security and dignity of the “premises of the mission,” which are designated as “inviolable” in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Setting up a statue also constitutes an act of freedom of expression as defined by the South Korean Constitution, which supersedes the peace and dignity of overseas missions.

Yun also praised his own administration’s achievement with its agreement with Tokyo on the Japanese military comfort women issue on Dec. 28, 2015, which he called “the closest thing to the resolution plan we desire.”

“If the agreement is broken due to the recent situation [with the Busan statue], there are concerns this could hurt South Korea-Japan relations, diminish South Korea’s overseas credibility, and otherwise affect national interest in serious ways,” he declared, to the visible dismay of lawmakers present.

“I felt like this was a report from the Japanese Foreign Minister,” said Minjoo Party lawmaker Kang Chang-il.

The comfort woman statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan

Yoon Young-seok, a lawmaker with the ruling Saenuri Party, said he could “not understand this attitude that Japan fulfilled its end of the agreement with its contribution of one billion yen (US$8.7 million).”

“I don’t think at all that one statement in an agreement means Japan has apologized and reflected,” Yoon said.

The Committee for the Setting Up of a Peace Statue by the Future Generation, which was responsible for setting up the statue in front of the consulate, responded to Yun’s remarks by saying the Japanese government “needs to provide a sincere apology and legal compensation if it wants to resolve the Japanese military comfort women issue.”

“Minister Yun is representing the Japanese position and should step down,” the committee said.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter and Kim Young-dong, Busan correspondent

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