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TOKYO: Japan and South Korea said Monday they had "finally and irreversibly" resolved a dispute over wartime sex slaves that has bedeviled relations between the two countries for decades.
In something of a surprise development, the two countries' foreign ministers met in Seoul to finalize a deal that will see Japan put $8.3 million into a South Korean fund to support the 46 surviving so-called "comfort women" and to help them recover their "honor and dignity" and heal their "psychological wounds."
The move will be welcomed in Washington, which has been both concerned and annoyed by the fighting between its two closest allies in Asia. This year marks seven decades since the end of World War II and the end of the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula.
Independent historians have concluded that as many as 200,000 women and girls - from occupied countries such as Korea, China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations - were coerced by the Japanese Imperial Army to work as sex slaves during the war.
"We made a final and irreversible solution at this 70th anniversary milestone," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo after speaking to his South Korean counterpart, President Park Geun-hye, on the phone.
Earlier, in Seoul, his foreign minister had said Abe "expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences."
"I feel we've fulfilled the responsibility of the generation living now," Abe said after his call with Park. "I'd like this to be a trigger for Japan and South Korea to cooperate and open a new era."
In Seoul, Park said it was "especially meaningful" to reach the agreement before the end of 2015, the 50th anniversary of normalized relations between Japan and South Korea.
"The most important thing is for Japan to diligently and promptly implement what has been agreed to restore comfort women victims' honor and dignity and heal their wounded hearts," Park said, according to the Yonhap News Agency, after meeting with Fumio Kishida, Japan's foreign minister.
Seoul promised this would be the end of the dispute - which has been officially "resolved" before - if Japan fulfills its side of the agreement. It comes less than two months after the two leaders held their first summit, and after the resolution of a high-profile court-case, with a Japanese journalist this month acquitted of defaming Park.