US President Donald Trump (right) speaks during a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the Oval Office of the White House (Picture credit: AP)
US President Donald Trump on Monday drew attention to the sensitive issue of “comfort women” during his White House meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, a discussion that otherwise focused on security ties, North Korea, and economic cooperation.“The whole issue of the women. Comfort women. Very specifically. We talked and that was a very big problem for Korea, not for Japan. Japan was, wanted to go, they want to get on. But Korea was very stuck on that,” Trump said while seated beside Lee. The term “comfort women” refers to women and girls forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military during World War II. Historians estimate that hundreds of thousands were victimised in what is considered one of the largest cases of state-sponsored human trafficking in modern history. The use of the euphemism itself has long been criticised for downplaying the scale of the atrocities.Trump’s comments come at a time when Seoul and Tokyo are still navigating the legacy of Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. As per news agency Reuters, President Lee recently told Japanese media that while the 2015 agreement on the issue, which saw Tokyo apologise and contribute 1 billion Yen ($6.8 million) to a victims’ fund, remained “undesirable to overturn,” it was still “very difficult to accept” for many South Koreans. He described the comfort women issue as “heartbreaking” and urged Japan to continue dialogue with survivors.According to news agency AFP, Trump also spoke bluntly on the subject during his wider conversation with Lee, even as the South Korean leader sought to highlight reconciliation efforts, including his symbolic visit to Tokyo before arriving in Washington. Japan, meanwhile, has said it considers the 2015 pact as having “irreversibly” resolved the matter if both governments honour their commitments.The comfort women question remains one of the most politically sensitive topics in Korea-Japan relations, with survivors and activists demanding more direct recognition and accountability from Tokyo.Lee has said Japan is a “very important country” and stressed his aim to strengthen trilateral cooperation with Tokyo and Washington, despite domestic scepticism over past agreements.
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