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Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement to end a long-running dispute over Korean women used as sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II. The issue disrupted relations between the two key U.S. allies for decades and hindered U.S. diplomatic and security goals in the region.
Under the agreement, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will issue a formal apology to women—known as “comfort women”—who were recruited or coerced into providing sex for Japanese soldiers. Tokyo will also provide about 1 billion yen (U.S.$8.3 million) to a compensation fund that will support the remaining victims.
Tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. In South Korea, there are 46 surviving former sex slaves, most in their late 80s or early 90s.
“The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honour and dignity of large numbers of women, and the government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective,” Japan Foreign Minister Funio Kishida said after a meeting in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart. Mr Kishida said the deal marks “the beginning of a new era of Japan-South Korea ties.”
It is the first time the Japanese government has provided direct compensation to former comfort women or explicitly recognized responsibility for the programme that brought tens of thousands of women from South Korea, China and elsewhere in Asia into sexual servitude. The issue has been the biggest source of friction in ties between Seoul and Tokyo.
The agreement, which comes during the 50th anniversary year of the normalization of relations between the two countries, calls for the two governments to refrain from criticizing each other over the topic. Relations have long been contentious, largely because of issues related to the war and Japan’s brutal 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
In a major development, the Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with Australia. The agreement will bolster energy security by supporting the expansion of nuclear power in India.
The civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Australia was brought into force on 13 November 2015 along with the Administrative Arrangement for implementing the agreement.
During the G-20 summit in November 2015, India had announced the conclusion of a civil nuclear agreement to buy uranium from Australia to increase conventional fuel supplies.
The announcement came after bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Turkey.
India and Australia signed a preliminary nuclear cooperation agreement in September 2014 after talks had begun in 2012 between the two countries on the subject.Australia has about 40% of the world’s reserves of uranium.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise visit to Pakistan – a significant sign the icy relationship between the two neighbours is thawing.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif greeted him at an airport in Lahore during his short layover in the city while en route to New Delhi from Afghanistan. Mr Modi met with his Pakistani counterpart at the official residence of the Sharif family in the Punjab town of Raiwind for impromptu talks.
Both leaders expressed their desire to carry forward the dialogue process for the larger good of the people of the two countries. It was agreed to continue and enhance bilateral contacts and work together to establish good neighbourly relations.
It was the first time an Indian PM has visited Pakistan in almost 12 years. Relations have been strained between the two countries since 1947, the year they gained independence from British rule. The last Indian prime minister to visit Pakistan was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when he attended a South Asian summit in 2004 and held talks with then-President Pervez Musharraf.