The 2015 agreement concerning “comfort women” has recently been under discussion as the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated the plan to leave the document as is. Tokyo was able to explain the meaning of the Korean comfort women as a euphemism at the 2014 U.N. Human Rights Committee. Meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the Prime Minister understood the agreement between the two nations.
The Prime Minister believes that South Korea and Japan must come together in order to build a relationship that can benefit the future. This future motivated union was readily accepted by President Moon as he made a statement at a meeting help in Pyeongchang. This is the same location where the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony will be held.
These agreements are seriously considered due to the history between the two countries. South Korea and Japan have a long history thanks to the colonization of South Korea between 1910 and 1945. Japan forced many Korean women to work at the many brothels during those stressful times of war. What many people aren’t aware of is that both South Korea and Japan are allies with the United States of America. The fact that these two allies were aggressively feuding became a tricky matter to deal with. There were also concerns as the allies needed to handle North Korea’s missile programs.
The agreement that was raised by Japan and South Korea’s former leaders came to the fore in 2015. Japan made the impressive move and apologized to the coerced women and heard the comfort women stories. In addition, in order to compensate the former comfort women testimonies for their ordeal, the leaders came together and awarded about $9 million to a fund to assist those who suffered. At the start of the year, South Korea made the announcement that this agreement didn’t not support the needs of those who suffered and that more needed to be done to make amends. Japan didn’t agree with their stance and didn’t make a move for changes.
Prime Minister Abe made an announcement to reports following the Pyeongchang meeting with the President of South Korea where he explained the agreement. The media was advised the the agreement between Japan and South Korea was binding and that it worked to resolve any problems and concerns between the two countries. The prime minister’s attendance at the games did cause some surprise and peaked the interest of his more serious minded supporters.
The Japanese prime minister also went on to make some requests that be carried out. The Prime Minister desires for the statues that have been constructed of the mostly South Korean comfort women to be removed from the various countries in which they reside. These countries amazingly include Australia, Germany, and even the United States of America. There has been substantial damage imposed on the comfort women victims and their families and President Moon believes more can be done in other avenues. He proposes that the two countries should come together and continue their goals to resolve the issue.
Although there are differences between the countries, the Prime Minister and President both desire to move forward. South Korea, China and Japan have plans for a summit in order to discuss pressing matters as soon as they can. There is a strong need to discuss North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs and the countries have to come to some sort of resolution to make necessary improvements. Things are being optimistically considered as the coming together of these powerful countries is a good sign for change.
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