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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

The UN responded to controversy about Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ expression of support for South Korea and Japan’s comfort women agreement by explaining that Guterres had been making a general statement.

“During their meeting in Sicily, the Secretary-General and Prime Minister Abe did discuss the issue of so-called ‘comfort women.’ The Secretary-General agreed that this is a matter to be solved by an agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea,” UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on May 28. “The Secretary-General did not pronounce himself on the content of a specific agreement but on the principle that it is up to the two countries to define the nature and the content of the solution for this issue.”

Japanese wire service Kyodo News had previously quoted an announcement by Japan’s Foreign Ministry when it reported that Guterres had said he supported and welcomed the comfort women agreement during a separate meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Taormina, Sicily, on May 27. Guterres was responding to a remark by Abe about the importance of South Korea and Japan implementing the 2015 comfort women agreement, Kyodo News said.

The UN rushed to release this statement in an apparent attempt to quash accusations that Guterres had sided with Japan on the comfort women issue, following reports in the Japanese media.

In a report on May 12, the UN Committee Against Torture recommended that the comfort women agreement be amended, concluding that the agreement was unsatisfactory in regard to compensating the victims, restoring their reputations and preventing such events from reoccurring. During his first phone call with Abe after becoming president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in said that “the fact is that a majority of Koreans emotionally cannot accept the comfort women agreement.”

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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