Japan said Friday it had decided to recall its ambassador to South Korea in response to the erection of a statue representing victims of the Japanese military's wartime sexual slavery, known as "comfort women." Tokyo temporarily pulled its ambassador to South Korea, Yasumasa Nagamine, from Seoul, and its consul-general in Busan City, Yasuhiro Morimoto, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. Japan will also suspend talks on a proposed currency swap with South Korea, Suga added. The "comfort woman" statue was erected outside the Japanese consulate in Busan by a civic group in late December. "We have repeatedly asked South Korea to deal with the resolution of this issue appropriately, but the situation has not improved, so we have taken this action," Suga said. South Korea criticized Japan, saying Friday's decision was "highly regrettable." "Even if there are difficult issues, the governments of both countries must continually develop South Korea-Japan relations based on a relationship of trust," the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Tokyo has long demanded the removal of another statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Up to 200,000 women and girls were forced into sexual slavery to serve the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II, historians say. Many of the women were from South Korea, which was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 and 1945. Japanese lawmakers such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Defence Minister Tomomi Inada previously denied the Japanese military's direct responsibility for the wartime brothels, calling the victims "prostitutes." In December 2015, the two countries agreed to settle the issue and Tokyo said it would provide 1 billion yen (8.6 million dollars) to a foundation set up by Seoul to support elderly Korean survivors. The agreement, however, failed to meet what victims have long sought, Japanese and Korean activists say. Many of them have demanded an official apology, reparations and the inclusion information about wartime atrocities in Japanese textbooks.
