Abe Tells Kishida to Visit S. Korea by Year-End

Tokyo, Dec. 24 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday to visit South Korea by the end of this year. Abe hopes to strike a deal on the issue of so-called "comfort women" who were forced to serve as wartime prostitutes for Japanese troops before the year to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic normalization between the two nations ends, informed sources said. The Japanese and South Korean governments are arranging a meeting between Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, on Monday, according to the sources. During his two-day visit to Seoul through Wednesday, Shotaro Yachi, head of the secretariat of Japan's National Security Council, met with relevant South Korean officials and agreed to hold the Kishida-Yun talks. Yachi's visit followed an agreement between Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye at their first summit held in Seoul on Nov. 2 to spur negotiations to promptly resolve the issue, which involves Japan's compensation for surviving Koreans who served as comfort women during World War II. The Japanese government maintains the position that the state compensation issue was legally resolved fully through a bilateral agreement concluded in 1965. Tokyo has been trying to break the impasse in the comfort women talks by offering to expand humanitarian measures, such as financial assistance, for the surviving women in return for Seoul's assurance that South Korea will never bring up the issue again in the future. Kishida will visit Seoul after South Korean courts acquitted a Japanese newsman of defaming Park and refrained from making a decision on whether the 1965 agreement was unconstitutional. END