S. Korea renews demand for Japan to hold talks on wartime sex slaves

South Korea renewed its demands Tuesday for Japan to hold bilateral talks on the issue of compensation for Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japan's World War II soldiers, an official said. Seoul has proposed talks with Tokyo on the issue since September, following a ruling by the Constitutional Court that it is unconstitutional for the Seoul government to make no specific effort to settle the issue, but Japan has not responded to the proposal. Foreign ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said his ministry called in a Japanese diplomat in Seoul earlier in the day and delivered a diplomatic letter urging Tokyo to swiftly accept the proposal. "As the Japanese government has not responded to our proposal to hold the bilateral consultation, we urged the Japanese side in the document to accept our proposal as soon as possible," Cho said. Japan, which ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945, has acknowledged that its wartime military used sex slaves, euphemistically called "comfort women." However, Japan refuses to compensate the women individually, arguing that the issue was settled by a 1965 normalization treaty. But South Korean officials said the issue can't be regarded as being fully resolved by the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Agreement because it was a "crime against humanity." "We believe that Japan should agree to the bilateral consultation on the at least three issues the Claims Settlement Agreement left unresolved, and we will continue to urge Japan to do so," Cho said. According to historians, up to 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were coerced into sexual servitude at front-line Japanese brothels during World War II. Japan's former wartime sexual enslavement is becoming an increasingly urgent priority as most surviving comfort women are elderly and fear they may die before they receive compensation or an apology from Japan.