Japan’s government on Monday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after U.N. investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-findings and reparations for the victims. In its own response to U.N. human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history," underscoring how the two Asian U.S. allies continue to hold key differences on the issue, even as they have recently paused their on-and-off disputes over Japan’s brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II to stabilize bilateral ties.
