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Second Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong-moon delivers a keynote address via teleconference at the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Feb. 23. (provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The Japanese government has taken issue with a South Korean government spokesperson’s remark that the comfort women issue is a “universal human rights issue” that people should work together to resolve. Tokyo described the remark as “unacceptable,” citing a comfort women agreement concluded with Seoul in December 2015.

“Japan cannot accept this kind of remark in light of the comfort women agreement that we reached with South Korea [in December 2015], which confirmed that the comfort women issue has been finally and irreversibly resolved,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said during a daily press briefing on the morning of Feb. 24.

Kato was referring to remarks made by South Korea’s Second Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon during a keynote address at the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Feb. 23.

Kato said that Kazuyuki Yamazaki, Japan’s ambassador to international organizations in Geneva, had conveyed these thoughts to his South Korean counterpart and that he would express Japan’s position when the council opens up the floor for responses.

In earlier remarks, Choi mentioned sexual violence in regions of conflict as an “urgent” human rights concern that humankind needed to work together to combat.

“The current and future generations need to learn an invaluable lesson from the painful experience of the so-called ‘comfort women’ victims during the Second World War,” he stressed, adding that the “comfort women tragedy needs to be approached as a universal human rights issue.”

Choi went on to discuss South Korea’s efforts to heal the trauma suffered by the comfort women survivors but did not explicitly mention or denounce Japan.

While the South Korean and Japanese governments agreed to “refrain from condemning or criticizing one another on this issue before the UN or international community” in their comfort women agreement on Dec. 28, 2015, the two sides have never agreed to not broach the topic at all.

But with Kato insisting that Japan would “assert [its] right to respond and argue [its] position,” a heated war of words appears likely to unfold before the UN Human Rights Council between the South Korean and Japanese representatives.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

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