- Korean plan to put sex slave statue on disputed island riles
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Slave
Tokyo, Jan. 17, 2017 (dpa/NAN) Japan has lodged a protest with Seoul about South Korean lawmakers’ plan to erect a statue depicting victims of wartime sexual slavery the government said on Tuesday.
The move was “extremely regrettable, we immediately lodged a strong protest with South Korea,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
A group of South Korean lawmakers announced the plan to erect the statue on the islet, contested by the two countries Japan and the Korean Peninsula which is part of a disputed chain called Dokdo by South Koreans, but Takeshima by Tokyo.
The plan was “unacceptable,’’ Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. “In the first place, Japan’s position is that Takeshima is our inherent territory, both under international law and historically.’’
Kishida’s remarks prompted South Korea to urge Japan to “stop making such useless claims.’’
“It is deplorable that Japan makes these claims,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Cho June Hyuck said.
Earlier this month, Japan recalled its ambassador to South Korea in response to the installation of a “comfort women’’ statue outside the Japanese consulate in the port city of Busan by South Korean activists in late December.
Up to 200,000 women and girls were coerced into sexual slavery to serve the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II, historians say.
Many of them were from South Korea, which was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. (dpa/NAN)
(Edited by Abigael Joshua/Julius Enehikhuere)