Residents in both Japan and South Korea have reason to rejoice. At the end of the year 2015, the governments of the two countries reached an agreement regarding the comfort women issue. The foreign minister of Japan agreed that the Japanese Imperial Army was involved in the issue. The issue revolves around South Korean comfort women in the second world war. The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, has expressed his apologies.
As part of the agreement, Japan decided to contribute one billion yen to South Korea to help out any of those comfort women who are still around. One billion yen is the equivalent of around nine million United States dollars. On the South Korean side, it was agreed to formally put the issue to rest. The comfort women statue that is in front of the Japanese embassy in the capital city of South Korea will also be removed as part of the agreement.
After several months after the agreement was reached, it is time for it to be implemented. The question is how this will be done, and how people will react to it.
People in Japan are generally very happy about the agreement. This is because they feel that it has helped improve the relationship between Japan and South Korea, which will lead to future cooperation between the two countries that will benefit the citizens of both countries, both in regards to the economy and in regards to security. Shinzo Abe, who is the prime minister of Japan and who is generally seen as a nationalist who is patriotic about his country, also seems to be satisfied with the agreement to a certain extent, saying that it is necessary to deepen the ties between the two countries in these troubling times, and that reaching an agreement on the comfort women testimonies issue is the right way to go about doing so.
How is the agreement viewed in South Korea? As in Japan, many citizens of South Korea are in support of the agreement. They also feel a need to have a better relationship with their neighboring country, and they feel that the agreement has terms that are sufficient, and that the contribution of a billion yen is a great start and something that will help resolve the issue of the comfort women stories. However, you can not always please everybody, and there remain people in South Korea who are not satisfied with the terms of the agreement and who feel that the statue in front of the Japanese embassy should not be removed, despite the agreement.
The question remains about how the agreement will be implemented, and if it will indeed be implemented at all. The reason this is something up for question is because the ruling party in South Korea at the time the agreement was reached was not reelected to run the country. Since a different party is now heading the government, it remains possible that they will not like the terms of the agreement and may want to either cancel the agreement or try to reach new terms for the agreement.
In the end, the comfort women issue still remains to be fully resolved. While the people in both countries support it, it remains to be seen if it will be implemented by the new government in South Korea, and if so, when will it be done and to what extent will it be done. However, the majority of people in the two countries are very happy about the agreement and want it to be implemented as soon as possible. Hopefully, the government in South Korea will get around to it as soon as possible, which will make most people happy, because most people agree that it is a good thing.
