North Korea Is Again Trying To Stir Up Division Between Japan and South Korea

North Korea, in its four-day Workers’ Party Congress in May, tried extending the olive branch to Seoul but was rebuffed, its attempt seen as propaganda without sincerity. The move was rather surprising, since Pyongyang was quite vocal in its criticism of the landmark agreement that Seoul and Tokyo reached in December. The deal marked the final and irrevocable resolution of the issue of the World War II comfort women that had frayed the ties of both countries.

Pyongyang’s state news media, the Korean Central News Agency, blamed the United States for brokering the deal, saying “The agreement was reached, masterminded by the White House which is seeking to use the two allies as storm troopers for its control over Asia.” Although President Obama’s administration did not take part in the talks, the U.S. is pleased with the positive developments. A unified stand of its two key Asian allies will help to strengthen America’s bid to counteract China’s increasing economic influence and territorial encroachment. Trilateral ties also make for a more powerful force against North Korea’s nuclear weapons aggression. US Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken admitted as much in an interview, saying the accord mattered strategically to his country.

The relationship between Japan and South Korea, two nations that historically didn’t get along,  worsened in 2013 when Japan PM Abe Shinzo and South Korea president Park Geun-hye took over their respective country’s reign. Abe and Park are both staunch right-wing politicians and had extremely opposing stands on the issue of the comfort women in WWII. For Abe, many of the women were not the sex slaves as generally portrayed but gave their services voluntarily as their duty to their country, as Korea was still a colony of Japan.

Further, he saw the 1965 treaty between Seoul and Tokyo as the final settlement for all claims that South Korea asked from Japan. A total of $800 million in grants and loans was handed to the government then headed by Park’s father, Park Chung-hee as payment for property and other claims. In 2005, declassified documents revealed that Japan wanted to pay each comfort woman her due compensation individually but the former Park denied the request, receiving instead all the cash in behalf of the women. The 1993 Kono statement was one of the significant apologies Japan offered to its war crimes victims and The Asian Women’s Fund gave financial assistance to the comfort women of Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, the Netherlands and South Korea. Most of the South Korean comfort women were pressured into not receiving the aid. Park, on the other hand, felt that Japan had not fully and legally apologized and compensated for the sufferings of the women and would not deal with Japan until it complied with her demands.

Subtle pressure and political motives saw the historic agreement through, but it was not without its kinks. Some of South Korean groups have their own points of view on the matter and North Korea exploited their differing opinions from their government by igniting the flames of protest.

Aside from KCNA, Chong Dae Hyup, (Korean Council for Women Drafted into Sexual Slavery by Japan) a suspected North Korea sympathizer, called on the people’s nationalism to protest against the agreement. The Korean American Civic Groups for Comfort Women, a group of dubious origin, held protest rallies in Los Angeles and created a petition asking for the termination of Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for his role in the successful negotiation of the Japan-South Korea 2015 agreement.

Another pro-North Korean group, the Association of Koreans in Japan for Peaceful Reunification, called the deal a “humiliating diplomacy” for South Korea. The association is under the umbrella group Chongryon, which looks after North Korean concerns in Japan. Its statement saw print in the Chosun Sinbo, a North Korean mouthpiece based in Tokyo. Pyongyang wants Japan to acknowledge its responsibility to the whole of Korea, saying there were comfort women in North Korea as well.

The deal, dubbed as final and irrevocable, laid down the following conditions: Japan is aware of its responsibilities on the issue of the comfort women and apologizes for it. In addition, it will give the amount of $8.3 million to the South Korean government to use as recovering the honor and dignity and healing the psychological wounds of all former comfort women funding for the creation of a foundation supporting the women. South Korea, for its part, will talk with the concerned civic groups and strive to solve this issue in an appropriate manner for the removal of the statue of a girl put up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Finally, both sides will refrain from criticizing each other in the media.

One of the better outcomes of the agreement is the meeting of the defense ministers of the US, Japan and South Korea during the Shangri-La Dialogue, held in Singapore in the first week of June. Ashton Carter, Gen Nakatani and Han Min-koo will have a joint anti-ballistic missile defense exercise in Hawaii on June 28. This is in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test early this year and the following launch of ballistic missiles. As expected, the bloodthirsty tyrant is not heeding the call for denuclearization and will continue to taunt its south counterpart and break up its alliance with Japan.