South Korea and Japan failed to reconcile their differences over the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women during their 10th round of director-general-level talks in Seoul on Wednesday.
 
They agreed to hold another round of talks “at an early date” in line with their leaders’ agreement last week to accelerate the negotiations over the long-festering issue, the major source of bilateral antipathy.

Lee Sang-deok, director general of Northeast Asian affairs at the ministry, led the South Korean side while the Japanese side was represented by Kimihiro Ishikane, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

“We held deep, useful talks. With regard to our differences, we decided to continue our consultations to reach agreement on them at another round of talks to be held at an early date,” a senior Seoul official told reporters on the customary condition of anonymity.”

He refused to elaborate on the content of the bilateral talks, but noted that the two sides are moving forward “little by little toward a goal.”

Since the first round of the talks in April 2014, Japan has maintained the issue was already settled under a 1965 treaty normalizing bilateral ties. Article II of the treaty states the problem concerning property, rights and interests of the two contracting parties and their nationals has been settled “completely and finally.”

However, Seoul claims that the issue was not on the agenda for the negotiations over the treaty at the time, given that it was only in the 1990s that victims and civil society were just starting to raise the issue. It also claims it is a wartime human rights issue that should be dealt with separately from the treaty.

Seoul’s First Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam repeated the government stance on Wednesday.

“Our government’s firm stance has been that the issue was not included as part of the agenda for the negotiations for the 1965 treaty,” he said in a radio interview with the local broadcaster TBS.

Earlier in the day, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said nothing has yet to be determined with regard to the solution to the long-festering issue.

“No decision has been made yet over the issue,” he told reporters.

“As it is true that the comfort women issue has affected the development of bilateral relations, the two sides have repeatedly held director-general-level consultations,” he added, expressing hopes for an early resolution of the issue.

There are 47 known surviving Korean victims, who are an average of 89.2 years old.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)