Japan’s Motegi takes aim at South Korea ‘comfort women’ ruling, China territorial rows
- Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said in a foreign policy speech that the South Korean ruling on wartime sex slaves created an ‘abnormal’ situation
- He also said Beijing’s attempts to change the status quo in the East China Sea and South China Sea were ‘totally unacceptable’
The Seoul Central District Court’s January 8 ruling is “extremely regrettable” as it has caused “an abnormal, totally unthinkable situation in terms of international law and the bilateral relationship”, Motegi said in the speech, during which he outlined Japan’s foreign policy for the year.
Tokyo says the court order for the Japanese government to pay 100 million won (US$90,560) in damages to each of 12 former sex slaves violates sovereign immunity under international law, a principle exempting a state from the jurisdiction of foreign national courts.
Japan also says the ruling violates a 1965 bilateral agreement that settled compensation issues related to its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula and an accord reached by the two countries in 2015 to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the “comfort women” issue.