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By Chung Min-uck
Korea and Japan failed to find common ground in their first talks related to the Japanese imperial army's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Lee Sang-deok, director-general for Northeast Asian affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, met with Junichi Ihara, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs at the Japanese foreign ministry, at the ministry's building in Seoul, Wednesday.
This was the first time that officials from the two countries have discussed how to put an end to the decades-long feud over the issue.
However, they failed to make a breakthrough, only confirming their stark differences on the matter, the ministry said.
The two sides will hold follow-up talks in Tokyo next month, it added.
Tokyo is still refusing to take "legal" responsibility for the matter, which Seoul has long demanded, a government official said.
"Frankly speaking, there is no other choice but to push forward with our diplomatic efforts to get Japan to take legal responsibility for the comfort women issue from a global humanitarian perspective," the official said.
Women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the war are euphemistically called "comfort women."
Seoul sticks to the position that Japan must accept legal responsibility, offer a sincere apology and financial compensation to the victims.
Tokyo insists that all liabilities stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula were settled through the 1965 normalization treaty under which Seoul received $800 million in grants and loans.
Instead, the world's No. 3 economy says it is willing to compensate through "humanitarian" means.
Considering this, insiders believe the bilateral talks on comfort women will drag on without any fruitful results.
"It would be best if a one-time session resolved the comfort women issue. If not, I believe such talks will go on," said foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young during a recent briefing.
Meanwhile, the Japanese Kyodo News Agency, quoting a Japanese official, reported Wednesday that the two sides agreed to resolve the comfort women issue before next year, which is the 50th anniversary of the normalizing of diplomatic relations.
The report also said the Japanese government is reviewing various "humanitarian" measures, including providing government support for the victims, an official apology by the Japanese ambassador to Korea, and issuing a letter to the comfort women in Korea under the name of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Wednesday meeting came ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's scheduled visit to Asia, including South Korea and Japan, next week.
Washington has pressed its two allies to refrain from escalating tensions given the importance of their trilateral military partnership in Asia.
The comfort women issue recently became the center of diplomatic tension between Seoul and Tokyo after nationalist Abe attempted to whitewash his country's record of sexual enslavement and other wartime atrocities committed during World War II.
Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, were coerced into working at front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during WWII.
