Submitted by admin on Sun, 2007-04-01 08:00. ::
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Japan's foreign minister reassured his South Korean counterpart Tokyo stands by a'93 apology for sexual slavery in its Second World War military brothels, officials from both sides said, potentially defusing an escalating political row.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso's comments during fence-mending talks Saturday with Song Min-soon were seen as meeting the minimum demands set by South Korea to ease tension about the issue.
The dispute began when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in early March there was no evidence women were coerced into working at brothels for Japanese troops, apparently backtracking from Tokyo's'93 apology for having forced women into sexual slavery.
Abe, faced with mounting international criticism, later said he backed the'93 apology by then-chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, although he stopped short of clearly acknowledging Tokyo's coercion of women during the war.
During Saturday's talks on the South Korean resort island Jeju, Aso explained Abe stood by Kono's statement of apology and sympathy for the former sex slaves, said Mitsuo Sakaba, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Song "appreciated" the clarification but urged Japanese political leaders to be "careful not to create any doubt about the Japanese position on this particular matter," Sakaba said.
Song also expressed strong regret "over the wrong words and deeds by responsible Japanese leaders," South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said.
Historians say as many as 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean peninsula and China, served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the'30s and '40s. Many victims said they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.
South Korea and Japan are key trading partners but relations have been frayed by territorial and historical disputes largely associated with Japan's'10-45 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. Korea was later divided into the capitalist South and the communist North.
In their talks, Song and Aso agreed to work closely together to ensure the successful implementation of a landmark six-country agreement in which North Korea agreed to close its only operating nuclear reactor by mid-April in exchange for energy aid, officials said.
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