S.Korea refutes Abe's comments on wartime sex slavery

SEOUL - South Korea's foreign ministry on Tuesday refuted the comments by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who denied the "forced" recruitment of Korean women as sex slaves during World War II.

Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman Cho June-Hyuck told a press briefing that the forced recruitment by Japanese military of comfort women, an euphemism for Korean women coerced into sex slavery in Japan's military brothels during the devastating war, is an "undeniable, historical fact and truth."

The comfort women was recruited against their will by the Japanese military, a fact proved by victims' testimonies, documents of the allied nations and other documents of governments and international agencies, Cho said.

Cho's statement was a rebuttal of Abe's remarks on Monday that said there was no change in the Japanese government's stance of "no forced" recruitment of comfort women found in any documents that Japan has discovered.

Abe said that the recruitment was made by civilian pimps, which received requests from the military at the time.

Abe's remarks came after Seoul and Tokyo agreed in December on a final and irreversible deal on the sex slavery issue, under which Abe expressed apology from his heart and promised to offer state funds to the South Korean victims.

The South Korean victims and advocacy groups continued their rally to protest the deal, which they said must be nullified and renegotiated. The victims expressed their reluctance to receive the funds from Japanese government coffers.