Japan has apologized to South Korea and will pay about $8.3 million as compensation for its use of Korean “comfort women” who were forced to work in Japanese brothels during World War II.
The deal—which was announced after a meeting in Seoul on Monday between Fumio Kishida, the Japanese foreign minister, and Yun Byung-se, his South Korean counterpart—could go a long way toward improving relations between the two countries that have been strained for decades over Japan’s wartime occupation of the Korean Peninsula. After the meeting, and a formal apology from Kishida, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe telephoned Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president, to repeat the apology.
“Japan and South Korea are now entering a new era,” Abe said later. “We should not drag this problem into the next generation.”
It’s unclear how many women served as sex slaves for the Japanese during the war, but estimates range from 20,000 to 200,000. What is clear, however, is that many of the women are now very old.
Park, the South Korean president, said Monday that nine had died this year alone. Forty-six are still alive in South Korea.
“I hope the mental pains of the elderly comfort women will be eased,” she said after the agreement was announced.