Survey: 46 Percent Of South Koreans Think The Recent Meeting Between President Park Geun Hye And Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Is ‘Unproductive’

South Korean President Park Geun Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talked about resolving the issue of forced sexual slavery during the World War II at a bilateral meeting on November 2.

International Business Times reported on the same day that the two leaders vowed to come up with an agreement to resolve the issues between South Korea and Japan, particularly the decades-old comfort women issue.

"It's the 50th anniversary of the normalization of (Japan-South Korea) ties this year," Abe said. "Keeping that in mind, we've agreed to accelerate talks for the earliest possible resolution."

"Regarding the issue of comfort women, I believe we should not leave behind difficulties for future generations as we try to build a future-oriented cooperative relationship," the Japanese prime minister added.

On the other hand, Park's senior adviser for foreign affairs and national security revealed that the South Korean president consider the issue of comfort women as the "biggest obstacle in efforts to improve bilateral ties" with Japan.

"She stressed that the issue must be quickly settled in a way that our people can accept," Kim Kyou Hyun says, as noted by Association Press Nov. 2.

Despite the recent talks on the resolution of the comfort women issue, a survey revealed that almost half of the South Koreans asked about their views think the recent bilateral summit of the two leaders was "unproductive".

The Asahi Shimbun forecasted Saturday that 46 percent of surveyed South Koreans considered the meeting as "unproductive", while only 23 percent said that the meeting between Park and Abe was "productive".

1,004 adult South Koreans participated in the survey conducted by South Korean research company Gallup Korea from November 3 to 5. Results of the poll were revealed on Friday.

The survey also revealed that 76 percent of the surveyed South Koreans said they deemed the Japanese government would "not change its position on the issue of comfort women, whereas 14 percent said otherwise.