South Korean President Park Geun Hye And Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe To Resolve The Issue Of Comfort Women As Soon As Possible
South Korean President Park Geun Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met at a bilateral summit at the Blue House Monday, wherein the two leaders reportedly agreed to put more efforts in building the ties between the two countries.
An official from the Foreign Affairs and Security of South Korea said that the bilateral summit was considered a step to develop bilateral ties.
"The two leaders shared the understanding that this summit must serve as an important turning point to improve bilateral relations," Senior Presidential Secretary Kim Kyou Hyun said, as noted by Korea Joongang Daily Tuesday.
He went on, "They agreed to put more efforts into building more forward-looking and mutually beneficial cooperative ties by resolving the pending issues that have obstructed improvement of bilateral relations."
According to reports, Park and Abe met in two separate meetings. Both sessions covered Japan's disinclination to resolve the issue of comfort women. While no breakthroughs regarding the matter was mentioned, the two leaders reportedly indicated that progress might be seen before the year ends.
"Park pointed out that the comfort women issue is the biggest obstacle in improving the two countries' relations. She stressed that this issue must be resolved as soon as possible with a resolution that is acceptable to the victims and convincing to the Korean people," Kim said.
"Keeping in mind that this year is a turning point marking the 50th anniversary of normalization of ties between Korea and Japan, the two leaders ordered [their governments] to speed up negotiations to resolve the comfort women issue as soon as possible," he added.
Meanwhile, Abe said at the summit that he and Park have reached a deal to speed up talks to resolve the long-festering issue of comfort women as soon as possible.
"It's the 50th anniversary of the normalization of (Japan-South Korea) ties this year," Abe said, as reported by International Business Times Monday. "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 said.
Meanwhile, South Korean president Park is bullish that the bilateral summit "will heal the bitter history in a broad sense and be a sincere one and an important opportunity to develop the two countries' relationship."
