Korea, Japan fail to iron out differences on girl statue issue

Top diplomats of South Korea and Japan held bilateral talks on Friday but failed to iron out differences over a controversial statue as they remained firm on their own stances, a government source said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida met in the German city of Bonn on the sidelines of a group of 20 meeting. The meeting comes amid friction over the girl statue civic groups recently installed before the Japanese consulate in the South Korean port city of Busan.

"We explained our stance, while the Japanese side expressed regret over the installment of the statue and demanded our active efforts to resolve the issue," the source said on condition of anonymity.

In December, civic groups erected the statue symbolizing Japan's wartime sexual slavery of Korean women before the Japanese consulate. That is the second of its kind built at Japan's overseas missions in Korea, with the other standing in front of its embassy in Seoul. 

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se (left)and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida (Yonhap)
Japan demands its immediate removal, saying that it runs counter to a 2015 deal meant to resolve their long-running dispute "finally" and "irreversibly" over the victims, euphemistically called comfort women. In protest, the Japanese ambassador left Seoul in early January and has yet to come back.

The Seoul government says that it will work to induce an appropriate resolution but that it doesn't have the authority to get the statue removed since it was installed by civic groups.

Yun and Kishida didn't discuss when the Japanese ambassador will come back to Seoul but the source said that Yun delivered the government position that communication is important and his return will be necessary to that end.

He, however, said that the two still shared the view that they should work to prevent the dispute over the statue from negatively affecting their bilateral ties.

The two also agreed they should advance their relations "based on trust" despite recent challenges, while reaffirming the importance of implementing what was promised under the 2015 deal, which is to heal the victims' wounds and restore their dignity, he added.

Meanwhile, in regard to Japan's recent push to renew its claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo in its education guidelines, Yun voiced his protest and asked Japan's cautious approach, the source said.

On Tuesday Japan's education ministry disclosed a draft version of its revised education guidelines that calls for elementary and middle schools to teach their students that Dokdo is Japan's territory.
 
Dokdo, which lies closer to South Korea in the East Sea, has long been a recurring source of tension between the neighbors. South Korea has kept a small police detachment there since its liberation from Japan in 1945 and has made it clear that Tokyo's claims to the islets are utterly groundless. (Yonhap)

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