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S.Korea says Japan's recalling of envoys over comfort women statue "very regrettable"

Xinhua, January 6, 2017 Adjust font size:

South Korea's foreign ministry said Friday that it was very regrettable for Japan to recall its senior envoys over the placing near its consulate of a statue symbolizing Japan's wartime sex slavery victims.

The Seoul ministry said in a statement that it wants to reiterate the emphasis on continued development in South Korea-Japan relations based on mutual trust though inter-governmental difficulties happen.

The statement came after Japan's government spokesman Yoshihide Suga announced the recall of its ambassador to South Korea in Seoul and its consul-general in Busan, South Korea's southern port city, in a protest against the comfort women statue that was put up a week earlier outside Japan's consulate in the port city.

Japan also unilaterally notified South Korea of stopping talks on the bilateral currency swap, which ended on Feb. 23, 2015. The currency swap between the two countries was first launched in July 2001, and had lasted for almost 14 years.

Seoul's finance ministry said in a statement that it was regrettable for Japan to stop the ongoing talks for political and diplomatic reasons.

The girl statue, which represents Korean women forced into sex enslavement for Japanese military brothels before and during World War II, was first erected in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul in 2011.

South Korean activists had attempted to set up the bronze, life-size statue on a sidewalk near Japan's consulate in Busan since Dec. 28, 2015 when Seoul and Tokyo reached a "final and irreversible" agreement on comfort women issues.

The agreement caused public outcry here as it ignored the victims' call for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-led cabinet sincere apology and legal responsibility for the wartime crime against humanity.

Last Wednesday, which marked the first anniversary of the agreement, South Korean activists put up the statue of a girl, which is dressed in Korean traditional costume and is sitting in a chair, without approval from the municipal government.

It was removed by police in the district of Busan, where the Japanese consulate is located, but it was put in place two days later as enraged South Koreans gave angry phone calls and left hostile messages to the district office. Endit