Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn called for the creation of conditions for a summit between President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
South Korea and Japan are close economic partners, though they have long been in conflict over territory and other historical disputes stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
One key unresolved issue is hundreds of thousands of Korean women who were forced to provide sex to Japan’s World War II soldiers.
Park has shunned a summit with Abe since taking office in 2013 due to frayed ties over their shared history, particularly over Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women.
South Korea demands Japan acknowledge state responsibility for the war crime, while Japan insists the issue was settled under the normalization treaty of 1965. Only 50 South Korean survivors remain.
Hwang said it’s important to create conditions to make sure that South Korea and Japan can hold a summit, which both sides can trust. He made the comment in a parliamentary session.
The comment came a day after Park attended a reception hosted by the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of their diplomatic relations. In a reciprocal move, Abe also attended a similar event hosted by the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo.
Hwang said the diplomatic functions could serve as an important occasion to resolve the issue of sex slaves. (Yonhap)
