S. Korean court orders gov't to disclose documents on sex slavery agreement with Japan

A South Korean court ordered the foreign ministry on Friday to disclose documents on the negotiations to reach an agreement with Japan about a year earlier over Japan's wartime sex slavery victims.

The Seoul administrative court ruled that the foreign ministry should make public diplomatic documents on the "final and irreversible" agreement, which South Korea reached with Japan on Dec. 28, 2015.

The Park Geun-hye government has been under fire for the agreement on "comfort women" in return for getting 1 billion yen (8.6 million U.S. dollars) to be used for surviving South Korean victims.

"Comfort women" is a euphemism for Korean women who were lured or forced into sex enslavement for Japanese military brothels before and during World War Two.

A local lawyer advocating the comfort women victims filed a complaint in February 2016 with the court to force the ministry to reveal detailed negotiations on the issue as the agreement failed to clearly refer to Japan's forcible recruitment of the former sex slaves.

The foreign ministry has refused to unveil the documents citing the possible break-up in diplomatic relations, but the court placed people's right to be informed before the national interests.

The ruling said the Dec. 28 agreement is about compensations for and assessment on Japan's unprecedented act against humanity and that people need to be informed of why Japan apologizes for it.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has yet to make a sincere apology and acknowledge legal responsibility for the war crime against humanity, with his own voice.

The South Korean victims protested against the agreement with the unrepentant Japanese cabinet, continuing a protest rally every Wednesday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

Since the agreement was reached, students here have voluntarily taken turns in camping out near the statue of a girl, which was set up in 2011 outside the Japanese embassy, for fear of being removed by their own government.

The bronze, life-size statue, which is sitting in a chair and is dressed in Korean traditional costume, symbolizes the teenager South Korean victims of Japan's sex slavery.

Japan recalled its ambassador to South Korea in Seoul and its consul-general in the southern port city of Busan earlier in the day in protest against the girl statue, which was put up by South Korean activists last week outside the Japanese consulate in the port city. Endit