Japan to recall ambassador, postpone economic dialogue with S Korea

TOKYO -- Japan has decided to recall its ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine over the erection of a new "comfort women" statue in South Korea, local media quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga as saying on Friday.

Japan will also halt currency swap talks and postpone high-level economic dialogue with South Korea as a statue representing women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels before and during World War Two was put up near the Japanese consulate in Busan last month, according to the Japanese government top spokesman.

"We have repeatedly asked South Korea to handle the resolution of this issue appropriately, but the situation has not improved, so we have taken this action," Suga was quoted as saying.

The Korean Peninsula was colonized by Japan from 1910 to 1945.

On Dec. 28 last year, the Park Geun-hye administration reached a "final and irreversible" agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-led cabinet on the "comfort women" victims.

A handful of aged, surviving South Korean victims oppose the agreement, saying Abe has yet to sincerely apologize for past atrocities and admit legal responsibility of the Japanese government for forcible recruitment of the teenage victims during the colonization.